Apprentice on the Island
by bloodwrites
Summary: Sequel to Murder in the Marriage. A haunted inn; a winter storm on an island in Maine; Zack's return, as he helps Booth and the Jeffersonian team solve the mystery of a 100-year-old Gormogon skeleton, before the new Master's apprentice kills again.
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE

The path up to the lighthouse was rocky, and almost impossible to navigate in the dark. Charlie Gilroy could hear music – a trumpet, a tenor sax, the piercing, nasal whine of an oboe, and an almost primal drumbeat beneath it all. It wasn't what he'd expected from an island ten miles off the coast, in a part of the country he'd never even imagined visiting -and it sure wasn't what he'd been expecting tonight. Somewhere close by, he heard a woman's laughter, haunting and ethereal.

He stepped up his pace.

The moon was full, the Maine night warm and humid. Charlie paused on the path, set the case holding his alto sax on the ground, and pushed a lock of damp, sandy blonde hair from his brow. The hem of his trousers was muddy. It felt like the night was closing in on him, sounds getting both louder and more muted the farther he went – the way it sounded when he hummed with his ears plugged. Everything was happening inside his head.

"Get a grip, Chaz," he whispered to himself.

His throat was dry. He thought of the drink the boy had given him, just before he'd left the inn not half-an-hour before. _My grand-da says you'll need a nip tonight, if you're gonna make it through. _

The boy was tiny – no more than five, if that. Dark eyes and a sharp nose, no laughter to his voice. Artie. He'd produced a silver flask, much like the ones Charlie and his pals carried with them, refilling at speakeasies all along the California coast when the law was looking the other way.

He'd drained the flask, Artie looking on. _Thank your grand-da for me – that was just what the doctor ordered. _

Charlie shook his head, trying to clear it. California seemed so far from here.

He searched his rucksack until he found the cigarette case his father had left him. The music played on, sounding distant and too close and almost underneath him, like a band was playing underwater. His hands shook as he lit a match, drawing a long pull from his cig until the end glowed orange in the night. Inside the cigarette case, he unfolded the note he'd kept with him, even though The Order had said to burn it. The words swam, coming in and out of focus as he read them by the light of the moon.

_Charlie Gilroy. You are gifted with Brotherhood. Meet us on the First of July, Year of Our Lord, 1932. Do not use your name. Do not tell a soul. Congratulations. You are Chosen. _

On the outside of the envelope were coordinates that he'd spent days looking up, back in Sacramento. He'd finally found the location on one of his grandfather's old charts. Monhegan Island.

His father had told him stories about The Order – said if he waited, lived a good life, followed his path, they'd come to him one day.

And they had.

Behind him in the darkness, a branch snapped. Leaves rustled, somewhere to his left. The music was closing in on him now, the drumbeat louder. The night was alive. He felt the crawl of something small and sure-footed at the back of his neck and jumped, batting away at whatever creature had landed there. His heart was beating so fast he could feel the rhythm, pushing his blood harder. Bass pounded in his ears, so loud that it shut out everything else.

"Is somebody there?" he asked. His voice sounded loud and strange in the night.

"Charles Gilroy?"

The Voice came as a hoarse whisper on the breeze. Charlie whirled, trying to find the speaker. There was no one. He stood still, his breath coming in gasps, his chest rising and falling too fast. He dropped his sax again and clutched his head, trying to make everything slow down.

"Charles Gilroy?" the Voice asked again – this time so close he could feel hot breath on his neck.

He could smell them now – Him: a smell of sweat and salt and liquor, damp earth and tobacco. It wasn't the smell of The Order – even now, in this state, he knew that. The Order smelled like American money and expensive cognac; they smelled like his father, before the crash. He wet his lips. He held still, but the night was spinning around him.

"What do you want?" he finally asked. The words came out slurred; it was the way he sounded after an eight-hour drunk, not after a single turn at a stranger's flask.

"You are Chosen," the voice hissed in his left ear, the smell of the stranger overwhelming now.

Charlie pulled to his right, trying to get away from the Voice, the smell, the feel of someone hovering just out of reach.

Hands caught him as he tripped on something in his path. His saxophone.

"Born August 19, 1902," the Voice continued. "Stanford, class of 1923. Brought here by The Order. You are the Widow's Son."

The words came out hot and wet against his skin. He stretched out his hands, trying to find the source, batting wildly at the empty night. _Everything was happening inside his head. _The thought made the panic worse, made his breath come harder, made the drumbeat louder.

Was this how it had been for his father, just before? A world locked inside his head, and he with no way to escape?

"I am Charlie Gilroy," he said.

The Voice laughed at him.

The drums grew louder and faster, as though the drummer could sense Charlie's desperation. A fork of heat lightning lit the sky, and an image in white light made him whirl to his right. It wasn't inside his head. It was such a relief that, for just the space of a heartbeat, all Charlie felt was gratitude.

And then, the reality struck. A hooded man stood in the darkness, his features obscured by shadows. The light caught off something in the stranger's hand. Precious seconds passed before Charlie Gilroy recognized it for what it was.

The jagged edge of a knife.

He ran.


	2. Chapter One

_Chapter One_

"I don't know why the hell this couldn't have waited a couple of months," Special Agent Seeley Booth shouted over high winds and the steady thrum of a diesel engine. Sleet stung his cheeks and, despite about six layers of winter gear, he was cold and damp and cranky as hell.

"This kind of find could be crucial to our understanding of the Gormogon murders – not to mention the number of unsolved homicides we might be able to resolve, from this single sculpture," his partner, Dr. Temperance Brennan, yelled back at him. "Just because the remains are old doesn't mean it shouldn't be treated the same way we would any crime scene. We need to be there."

He knew all that, of course. He just didn't know why retrieving the remains meant the entire team had to make a trek out to some godforsaken island ten miles off the coast of Maine in the middle of winter. He didn't say that, though – they'd already been over the argument half a dozen times, and he knew Bones well enough to know that him bitching about it wouldn't change her mind.

He could just make out a blur of black rock on the horizon, barely visible through spitting sleet and freezing rain. It was the kind of sight that might have been beautiful in the right circumstances – like if he were watching it on a big-screen plasma TV, for example, curled up on a Sunday afternoon with Bones in his arms and some good Scotch by his side.

Booth's stomach lurched with another wave. He clenched his teeth against the seasickness that had pretty much killed everyone's enthusiasm about this expedition. Honest to God, if they survived this boat ride, he was gonna kill Sweets – he didn't even care if the shrink was still recovering from the bullet that had almost taken him out a couple of months before.

_We have an opportunity to put this to rest, Booth, _the kid had said – gaunt and pale after the shooting, his eyes shadowed. _The Gormogon case did something to this team; it did something to Zack. This is our chance to set things right. We can give Zack a chance to prove to himself – and everybody else – that he's not the monster he's convinced he is. _And then, of course, Sweets had played his Ace. _When I thought I was going to die, this was the one thing I wished that I could change. Please, Booth – help me set this right. _

Booth looked around at the rolling seas and the dark grey sky, thought of the _last _time they'd gone up against Gorgonzola, and sighed. Yeah, he was gonna kill Sweets.

"I thought the ferry would be larger," Bones yelled in his ear, pulling him back to the present.

"Yeah. I think we all did, Bones."

They stood port side, shoulder to shoulder, with their gloved hands tight on the cold steel railing. Bones was the only one who didn't seem bothered by all the tossing on the waves – well, Bones and the damned dog, Booth thought, casting a glance at the collie sitting at Bones's knee. Dosha's sleek muzzle was pointed up like she was sniffing the salty air, her mouth stretched back in an unmistakable doggy grin. Not for the first time, Booth marveled at just how pretty the dog had gotten in a matter of a couple of months. When they'd first brought the collie home, she'd been malnourished and mangy – now, thanks to Bones's attention, Booth was pretty sure Dosh could give the dogs at Westminster a run for their money.

"We shouldn't be much longer – you can go below if you'd like," Bones hollered.

He shook his head. His hand slid closer to hers; she set hers on top and squeezed, her blue eyes on fire and that breathless laughter in her voice – that unreserved way she got when she made some science-y discovery he didn't get, or she was driving a little too fast or playing a little too hard. It had been a while since he'd seen that look.

Booth pushed the nausea back and shook his head again, enjoying the feel of her shoulder next to his.

"Nah, Bones – I'll stay out here. We'll ride it out together."

She tipped her head against his shoulder. "Just like always," she said.

And just like that, freezing rain and a gang of squints and an old bunch of bones on an island in the middle of nowhere didn't seem like such a bad thing. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah, Bones," he said, softer now. "Just like always."

* * *

><p>Once they hit shore, Booth went back in the boat cabin to see how everybody had fared. Bones was already off the dock and halfway up the hill before the rest of the squints had taken their first shaky steps on dry land.<p>

Cam leaned forward with her hands on her knees, her hair a whole lot messier than usual and her naturally dark complexion about three shades lighter than normal.

"I'd like to go on record now as saying, I hate Gormogon," she said.

"Yeah, well," Booth said, "You could've stayed home. I mean… These are bones we're talkin' about here, right? Not exactly your area."

Cam shook her head, that hint of steel in her eyes that had always gotten to him when they were dating.

"Uh unh. My team doesn't go through this without me. We were in it together last time – it's no different now." She looked out at the rocking black waves and the snow-covered island they were about to set up camp on, her resolve obviously shaken. "But, really, would it have been too much to ask for Arthur Graves to set this whole thing in motion sixty years ago, somewhere a little more hospitable? Acapulco… Miami? Why don't we ever get called in on cases somewhere nice?"

She wiped her mouth of what Booth suspected was the remnants of the lobster roll she'd had before they left the mainland, after it had made its second appearance. His stomach took another turn.

"I'll talk to Werner," he said, working up to a sympathetic smile. "Maybe next serial killer…"

"A girl can dream, right?" She grabbed her bags, took another steadying breath, and headed for the dock. "I'll see you up there, Seeley."

Hodgins was loaded down with gear, chasing after Angela – who, at seven months' pregnant, looked like this was the last place on the planet she should be. Since she was the only one who'd ever set foot on Monhegan before, and they'd gotten the tip about the skeleton from a friend of hers in the first place, she'd refused to be left behind. Booth still felt uneasy as hell about that particular decision.

"I swear, honey, you're gonna love it," she was saying to Hodgins. "The inn is beautiful – you'll see. I'll be fine."

It made Booth feel a little better that, aside from Bones and Dosha, Angela had handled their trip across the sea the best. Sure, she looked a little like a penguin when she was leaving the boat, but otherwise she seemed fine. All the same, he'd be glad when they had the skeleton and everybody was safely back on the mainland.

With everybody else unloaded, Booth went to the back of the cabin. He tried to keep the concern from his face when Sweets met his eye, his face even paler than ever, those circles under his eyes standing out like they'd been colored in.

"I'm fine, Booth."

Okay – so maybe he wasn't so good at looking unconcerned.

Sweets stood with some difficulty, then swayed for a second or two before he took a shuffling step forward.

"I could get you a chair or something," Booth offered. "I saw one stowed away on deck."

"I haven't needed a wheelchair in over a month," the shrink said. He shuffled another few steps. "I'm not going back to one now."

Booth had to hand it to him – whatever he might have thought of Lance Sweets before, most of that had changed since the shooting. There was no doubt in Booth's mind now: Sweets was a fighter.

But, again, not the reason Booth was there.

The _real _reason Booth was there held up his handcuffed wrists, tossing his head to try and get a lock of floppy hair out of his eyes.

"Are these really necessary?" Zack asked. "We're on an island ten miles out to sea, surrounded by ocean water with a median temperature of 30-degrees Farenheit during the winter months. You really think I'm going to make a run for it?"

"Sorry, Zack," Booth said, though he didn't really feel that sorry at all. "It's nothing personal – just following the rules. Sweets signed off on you coming out here to help with the case, but I'm the hired gun that makes sure nothing goes hinky."

"If by hinky you mean an escape, I can assure you I have no intention of trying anything. I don't even want to be here. I told you – I would have preferred to stay in the loony bin. Particularly since you wouldn't allow Greta – "

"Don't start," Booth said. "I don't wanna hear anymore about your imaginary movie star girlfriend or how much help she would've been on this thing."

"She isn't imaginary, and she's not a movie star. She's named after a movie star," Zack said. He stood when Booth gave him a tug, and kept talking while they left the shelter of the cabin and headed into the cutting wind. "And she would have been a great deal of help – she's studied secret societies for many years. That's the reason she introduced herself to me in the first place."

"A blonde bombshell named Greta Garbo who has a thing for secret societies and serial killers just happens to show up in the nut hatch one afternoon to talk to you, and nobody else so much as catches a glimpse of her." Booth felt his tension ratchet up a notch, despite everything Sweets had told him about how safe they all were with Zack around. "Yeah, I can't imagine why anybody would have a problem with that."

Sweets caught his eye; Booth clamped his mouth shut. He was supposed to be diplomatic, he knew.

"Zack, you knew that we couldn't have just allowed someone with whom you're having a romantic relationship to come with us on something like this," Sweets said.

They'd just stepped off the landing and onto the hard-packed snow of Monhegan Island's main road. The shrink was breathing hard, his color as grey as the fog coming up off the water. Booth checked his watch; the lack of sun had left him disoriented. He was relieved to find it was only a little after one o'clock.

Zack looked like he might keep arguing, but then he seemed to notice the shape Sweets was in, and fell silent. Booth cleared the way for the squint to go ahead of him. Sweets followed behind, still slow, his silence saying more than words ever could about the toll this trip was taking.

Not for the first time, not for the last, Booth wondered what the hell they were doing here.


	3. Chapter Two

_Chapter Two_

The sleet had nearly stopped by the time they had all offloaded from the boat known as the _Laura B. _Brennan was impatient to get to the remains, but managed to hold herself back until everyone was safely ashore and gathered together: Jack and Angela, Cam, Booth, Sweets, and Zack. Dosha thumped her tail against the ground, her head at Brennan's knee.

Brennan had the feeling of anticipation she always got upon embarking on a research expedition. The difference, of course, was that she had never been on a research expedition with the staff of the Jeffersonian… And while she had been in the field countless times with Booth, they had never worked together on something like this. There was, of course, also the fact that they would be working on the _Gormogon_ case again – a thought that she found undeniably unsettling.

"I told you it was beautiful here," a voice said in her ear. She turned, attempting – and failing – to squelch a grin as Angela's seven-months'-pregnant stomach brushed her arm.

"I don't think you mentioned it was quite this cold, though," Brennan said.

Cold was an understatement. Jagged sheets of ice clung to the shoreline, like oversized shards of broken glass. Everyone was dressed in so many layers that it was difficult to actually see anyone's face. The snow outside the narrow path that had been cleared for pedestrian traffic was at least three feet deep. Brennan was struck first by the solitude of this place, and then by the silence. She was amazed that this was Monhegan - the island Angela had been speaking of so highly for the past several days.

"Wait 'til you meet this guy, Bren," Angela said, keeping step beside her. "He's like Simon Baker's good looking brother."

Brennan looked at her blankly.

"He's hot, sweetie," her friend explained. "Beyond hot. And he's been, like, everywhere. When I used to wait tables out here, all the girls had a thing for him. I can't wait 'til you guys meet him."

"I know I'm looking forward to it," Hodgins said dryly.

"Ooh – there he is!" Angela squealed as a sled pulled by two ATVs barreled down the steep hill to the landing, coming to a stop just short of their group.

Two men climbed from their vehicles. Angela launched herself into the arms of the taller of the two, then dragged him over to the group as his friend began loading everyone's gear onto the sled.

"You guys, this is Diggs. Pulitzer Prize winner, world traveler, rock guitar god…"

"… Barfly, malcontent, serial monogamist..." a voice behind them continued the list. For the first time, Brennan noticed a petite woman in an oversized parka standing off to the side, slightly apart from the crew that had been helping offload the boat.

Angela squealed a second time. "Oh my God! Are you serious?" she said, as she and the other woman embraced.

"You're pregnant?" the woman asked, smiling. "Diggs didn't say you were having a kid – my god, you're huge."

Booth materialized beside Brennan's ear and leaned in. "So this is the reason she was so gung ho about this, huh? Are we chaperoning a reunion or bringing a body back to D.C.?"

Angela seemed to realize the others weren't quite so enthralled with the newcomers as she was. She took a step back, assuming a more professional bearing.

"Sorry, guys… It's just been like ten years since I saw these guys. This is Erin Solomon – we waited tables for a couple of summers out here, back when we were renegade teens. Well – _I _waited tables. Erin just tried to dig up dirt on everybody in a shameless attempt to impress Diggs here." She nodded toward the man to whom she had already introduced them. "Diggs is the one who first got word that Gormogon was tripping the light fantastic on Monhegan."

"We don't know that that's correct," Zack interrupted. "Based on everything I have been told and the photographs I've seen, this sculpture is significantly older than any others that have been found. This is likely a precursor to the work Arthur Graves began more than sixty years ago."

Brennan saw Erin and Diggs exchange a glance at the sight of Zack's manacled wrists.

"And who's this?" Erin asked Angela, when no one volunteered the information.

"Oh – uh… This is Dr. Zack Addy. He, uh…" Angela's voice faded.

"I'm the last known Master's apprentice," Zack said. "I've been incarcerated for nearly a year, after the latest spate of murders revolving around Gormogon."

Erin took a step back. Brennan watched with some interest as Diggs draped an arm around her shoulders.

"Don't worry, Sol," he said, with an admittedly attractive smile. "I've got your back."

"Great," the woman said dryly. "Unless the kid's got a soft spot for barbed wit and bad puns, I'm hoping they keep the shackles on."

* * *

><p>Once the gear was loaded and all necessary introductions made, everyone began the trek up the hill to the inn where they would be staying. They were halfway there before Brennan – already thinking about the case they were about to undertake and the remains awaiting her analysis – realized they were missing some members. She turned to Hodgins.<p>

"Where's Booth?"

He nodded toward the bottom of the hill; Brennan thought she saw a trace of regret in his eyes.

"I think he's got his hands full – looks like maybe Sweets took on a little more than he could chew, jumping on a case like this so soon."

"You go on," she said. "Meet me in the lobby in forty-five minutes, once you and Angela are settled. I'd like to get started as quickly as possible."

"Why the rush, Dr. B?" he asked, plainly disappointed. "It's not like this skeleton's going anywhere, and the killer's long dead… I thought maybe we could go a little easy on this one. You know, pace ourselves."

She'd heard intimations of the same attitude from Angela, and decided it was time to address her concerns head on.

"We're being paid to investigate a case – not to have a weekend getaway. Once we've done the preliminary analysis, you and Angela will have plenty of time to pace yourselves. On a working weekend, however, the work has to come first."

Hodgins grudgingly agreed. She watched as he hurried up the hill to rejoin Angela, feeling only a moment's remorse for her insistence that they maintain focus.

Booth and Zack were still standing at the landing when Brennan returned to them, Dosha trotting at her heels. Sweets was seated on a wooden piling with his eyes closed and his complexion ashen.

"What happened?" she asked Booth.

"What happened is, I never should have listened to him – this was a bad idea. There's no way he's ready for a trip like this."

"I'm still here, Booth," Sweets said. He opened his eyes. "And I'd appreciate it if people stopped talking about me like I've got one foot in the grave. I told you – I just need to take a little breather. I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," Brennan said. "I'll see if we can get some form of transportation. You could get a ride to the inn, and lie down there."

"There are only half a dozen vehicles on Monhegan," Sweets said. His voice sounded tight, his patience clearly wearing thin. "I'm guessing nobody's out joyriding right now. Just give me a second, okay?"

Brennan, Zack, and Booth stood there, undecided as to how to proceed, until the roar of an engine solved their dilemma. A moment later, one of the previous ATVs used to haul their luggage reappeared.

Angela's friend Diggs pulled to a stop and let the engine idle.

"Angie said somebody could use a lift," he said. He looked toward Sweets. "Hop on – this is what we call first-class limo service, Monhegan style."

Brennan thought it said a great deal about Sweets's current physical state that he didn't argue the point, instead accepting the proffered ride with obvious gratitude.

She and Booth watched the ATV charge back up the hill, and then Booth turned to Zack seriously.

"Okay – we're here. This whole weekend is on mine and Sweets's heads – you got that?"

Zack nodded.

"Sweets signed off on it because he's got some crazy idea that you need to prove something to yourself, or to everybody else, or to…" He trailed off. Brennan looked at him curiously, uncertain where this was coming from or where it might be leading. "I wouldn't be here if Sweets hadn't asked – this is a favor to him. So if you do something to make us regret trusting you, I've got a gun. I won't hesitate to use it."

"I understand," Zack said.

"Good. Give me your hands."

Zack did as he was directed. Booth removed the handcuffs from the younger man's wrists, then nodded up the hill.

"Now, go on – catch up with everybody else. We'll be there in a second."

Zack didn't move for a moment, looking uncertain. "Booth, I know that I said I could handle being here, but if for any reason it appears I'm not in control, or I give you cause to believe I'm under the Master's thrall once more…"

"You think I was kidding?" Booth asked, his tone easier now. "I'll shoot you, Zack. No worries, buddy."

The younger man sighed, as though a heavy burden had been lifted. "Thank you, Booth," he said solemnly.

Once she and Booth were alone, he turned his attention to her.

"How about you, Bones? Everything okay?"

She smiled at the gravity of his tone, though she knew he had reason to be concerned. The last few months had been anything but easy for either of them.

"I'm fine, Booth. No flashbacks, no anxiety, no chest pain."

"That's good." He put his arms around her, holding her for a moment before he stepped back, stroking her cheek with a gloved hand. "Just remember what Doc Harper said, okay? New surroundings, investigating an old case, somebody whose voice sounds like someone from your past… There are always triggers you might not expect. Just let me know if you need me."

She nodded. She was tired of having the same conversation they'd been having for the past month, when Brennan had begun seeing a psychologist about the violent attack - the _rape, _she corrected herself, recalling Grace Harper's insistence that she use the word - that she had never fully dealt with, nearly ten year ago. Now, it seemed that everything between she and Booth revolved around how she was feeling and what she was thinking and how it related back to her past. It would be nice, she reflected, to simply live in the present again for a while.

"I know, Booth. I'll tell you."

He seemed to sense her reluctance to dwell on the issue, because a moment later the gravity had left his face. A welcome grin appeared in its place.

"Now, come on – ten to one the rest of the crew is already at the hotel, scarfing up all the food and claiming the best rooms. Let's get the lead out."

He started to walk away. She watched him for a moment, taking in the confidence of his stride, the chiseled body that she knew so well, now hidden beneath layers of winter clothes. They were alone on the landing, no one but a couple of deckhands visible in any direction. Once she was certain that this was the case, she surprised Booth by taking his hand and pulling him back to her. She kissed him impulsively – his lips cold, his mouth sweet and familiar. She felt him hesitate, until she fisted her gloved hands in the lapels of his jacket, pulling him close. Finally, his arms enveloped her gently.

When they pulled apart, he looked dazed. In the past two months, such displays of affection had been few and far between.

"What was that for?" he asked, his arms still loose around her.

"Because I love you," she said simply.

His eyes searched hers, as though for some deeper meaning. When he seemed to find none, he grinned. "I love you too, Bones. You sure everything's okay?"

She stepped out of his arms and took his hand. "Everything's good, Booth."

For the first time in what felt like far too long, she meant it.


	4. Chapter Three

_Chapter Three_

As soon as Booth and Bones got through the front door of the Monhegan House – the 150-year-old inn where they would be staying while they tried to figure out what the hell was up with the Gorgonzola skeleton in the basement – Booth could tell that everything had gone to hell.

First off, the place was about as creepy as any he'd ever seen. Sure, in the summer it would be nice, with its wood beams and drafty windows and giant stone fireplace. But in the dead of winter, with a storm in the forecast and a skeleton in the cellar and no reliable mode of communication with the outside world… Yeah, this was not Booth's dream assignment.

"What the hell's the problem?" he asked, raising his voice to be heard over all the chatter.

"She says there's no skeleton," Zack finally said, pointing to a fit-looking woman with wild grey hair and crazy blue eyes, standing behind the front desk.

"What do you mean, there's no skeleton?" Booth demanded.

The good looking guy who'd picked up Sweets in the four-wheeler held up his hand.

"It's just a misunderstanding, guys – give me a minute here."

Angela's other friend – Solomon, Booth reminded himself, though he couldn't remember the first name – pulled them all aside. They stood in front of the huge, roaring fireplace. He felt himself start to thaw out for the first time since they'd left the mainland, almost two hours before.

"Diggs'll get it worked out," the woman said. She was a redhead - prettier than Booth had realized, when she was buried under all those winter clothes back at the landing. Maybe 5'3", she looked tiny next to Bones and Angela. "Just give him a minute or two – Zoe can be a little stubborn."

Booth strained to hear the whispered argument still going on at the front desk. From what he could tell, the skeleton had been there and now was missing, so it wasn't like the woman behind the desk was stonewalling. At least, she didn't seem to be. He left everybody else behind and joined Diggs.

"Is there a problem?"

The woman behind the desk just scowled at him.

"There might be – Zoe here says the skeleton's gone."

"What do you mean, it's gone?" Booth demanded. "It's a hundred-year-old bag of bones. Where the hell did it go?"

"Out for tea," Zoe said. "How the hell should I know? Mosby found the room while he was trying to fix the pipes after they busted during that last bad freeze. All I know is, suddenly he's found a secret room, and inside that secret room is a weird, half-silver skeleton and a bunch of old crap littered all over the place, from God knows when. And _then, _the next thing I know, Mosby goes and shoots his mouth off about it to God's gift to the local news here," she nodded toward Diggs. "… And now I've got a lobby full of Feds. And no skeleton."

"Excuse me," Bones joined them at the desk. From the way she was standing, Booth could tell she was ready to do battle. "We were told there were remains here that are, in all likelihood, from a known serial killer. Failure to produce those remains could result in criminal charges." She looked at Booth seriously. "You should show her your gun."

"I don't know if this is the place for that, Bones, but thanks," he said.

Bones put both hands on the desk and leaned in with that tough guy attitude that always made Booth want to kiss her senseless.

"We're not fooling around here – this is the Federal government. And Agent Booth was a sniper."

Zoe just rolled her eyes and turned to Diggs.

"Who the hell _are _these people?"

"Sorry, Zo," he apologized. "If the skeleton isn't here, do you have any clue where it might be? I mean… It didn't just get up and walk out, right?"

"It's somewhere in the hotel – that's the best I can tell you. No way somebody got that thing out the front door without somebody noticing, and the other doors are sealed up tight 'til spring."

"Okay, so that makes it easier," Booth said. "My guess is you don't have security cameras anyplace around."

She looked at him like he'd just suggested the floors were made of pure gold. "It's never been an issue before."

"Well, what about this Mosby person?" Bones interrupted. "He found the remains, correct? Could he have taken them?"

Zoe didn't look like she thought that was likely. "You can ask him, if you want - he'll be at dinner. Now, why don't you all either check in already or get the hell out of my lobby."

* * *

><p>The checking in was more of a headache than you would think – mostly because Angela and Hodgins seemed to have the idea that this whole nightmare was some kind of squint vacation. He and Bones had already had this whole conversation, so it was no big deal to him: work was work, personal was personal… Which meant separate rooms when they were on cases. Cam stopped Hodgins and Angela just before they disappeared into the honeymoon suite for the rest of the weekend.<p>

"Uh – excuse me, people. This is a case we're working on - a little decorum, please. We've got separate rooms already reserved for everyone…" Angela started to put up a fuss, but Cam held up her hand. "I don't want to hear it. It's not like I'm your chaperone – I won't be standing in the hall with a shotgun if anyone happens to _accidentally _let themselves into the wrong room at the end of the day. But, officially, we're here on business. Everybody gets separate rooms."

After Hodgins and Angela had their sleeping arrangements straightened out, Booth watched with interest as Cam leaned over the front desk, her voice low.

"You already have a reservation for me," he heard her say to Zoe, doing her damnedest not to be overheard.

"What's your name?" Zoe asked.

Cam leaned in a little further. "It's under Tripp Axel," she whispered.

Booth just grinned.

"You're Tripp's girl?" Zoe asked, all but shouting it across the lobby.

Cam waited maybe a beat before she got her composure back, then turned to everybody who was now watching the whole exchange.

"This is different – Tripp doesn't work with us," she said. There was a definite hint of desperation to her voice. "Besides, he just finished a twenty-eight day dogsled course up in northern Maine, and on Tuesday he's leaving to teach deep sea diving in Cameroon... If I don't see him now, I'm pretty sure I won't see him before this decade's out. I mentioned we might be in the area this weekend..."

"Oh, that's real professional, Camille," Booth said.

"What was that you were saying earlier about this not being a romantic getaway?" Angela piped in.

"I'll just take my key," Cam said quietly, cool as ice.

Zoe handed it over without another word.

Things were fine for Booth and Bones until Zoe noticed Dosha sitting pretty as you please by Bones's side.

"What does this look like – a pound?" the innkeeper demanded.

"She's very well-behaved," Bones said.

"Come on, Zoe – Einstein's already shacked up in my room," Erin interrupted. "And he looks like a refugee compared to Princess Grace here."

"Her name is Dosha, actually," Bones corrected her, totally oblivious. "Angela assured us it would be all right if she came along."

"Oh, well if _Angela _said it was okay," Zoe said, dripping sarcasm, "then I guess it'll be fine. Who the hell's Angela?"

Angela waddled up to the front desk, and then once Zoe realized who it was, there were all kinds of oohs and ahhs and exclamations over how grown up everybody was, and how long it had been. All that really mattered to Booth in all of it, though, was that Bones got the all-clear to keep Dosha with her, and they were finally sent on their way.

* * *

><p>Bones's room was on the third floor, with pretty flowered drapes and a great view of the ocean. Booth went up with her to help her get settled – even though Bones just gave him a look when he followed her up the third flight of stairs – and then, once her gear was stashed, Bones returned the favor by coming to check out his room.<p>

Booth had gotten a corner suite on the second floor. When she was handing off the key, Zoe mentioned something about sharing the room – which of course got Bones all up in arms, until she realized the innkeeper was talking about a ghost. So, no problem for Bones.

Booth was feeling a little less easy about it.

"Maybe I should get a different room," he said for maybe the third time, as he unlocked the door.

Bones just gave him that look – the one that suggested he was just a step above the village idiot.

"There are no such things as ghosts, Booth."

"Hey, I've seen them, Bones," he said. He pushed the door open, half-expecting it to push back.

"When have you seen a ghost?" she asked. More curious than skeptical, which was another thing he loved about her. Give her a little proof, and Bones was never too stubborn to change her theories.

"Okay – I haven't _seen _a ghost. But I've felt one before."

And there it was – the village idiot look again. Honestly, a guy could get a complex, spending too much time with a woman like Bones.

Once the door was open and he and Bones were inside, he snapped his fingers for Dosha to follow. The collie just stood there, her head low and ears flat back, a growl rough at the back of her throat. The hair on the back of Booth's neck stood on end.

"That's odd," Bones said. "Dosha, come!" She clapped her hands. Dosh hesitated before she finally came in, looking edgy as hell once the door closed behind her.

The room was cold and dark, with creepy paintings of stormy seas and old-fashioned lanterns on almost every surface. A four-poster bed stood in the middle of everything, pillows fluffed and a cozy-looking quilt just waiting for someone to climb under it. What a waste for a working weekend.

Booth set down his luggage and eyed the brick fireplace across from the bed, a blurry antique mirror on the mantle above. Maybe if they could wrap things up fast with the Gormogon thing, they _could _take the last night for a little R&R. He put his shaving kit in the bathroom, checked out the old porcelain tub, and returned to the room to find Bones standing with her back to him, staring at a painting of an old lighthouse.

He made sure she knew he was there before he put his arms around her, his lips lingering at her neck.

"Is this okay?" he asked.

She murmured her approval, then turned in his arms. "You don't always have to ask that, you know," she said. Serious as hell, her eyes on his.

"Doc Harper says it's important," he said. They'd had the argument before. "I don't want to hurt you, Bones."

"And you're not going to. You've never hurt me – you never could. I trust you."

He tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear. Searched her eyes, looking for whatever the truth might be. It wasn't that Bones lied to him… It was just that over the years, she'd gotten a little too good at lying to herself.

"I've scared you before, though," he said, quiet now. "I don't ever want to do that again, Bones."

It had been a little over a month now since the whole _incident, _as Bones called it, that had finally convinced her to see the shrink Sweets had recommended. Booth still wasn't even sure what he'd done to trigger the whole thing, but one second they'd been in bed together and the next, he was on the floor and Bones was in the middle of the worst anxiety attack he'd ever seen.

"I'm all right, Booth. I'll tell you if I'm not."

She kissed him on the mouth, tugging at his bottom lip with her teeth until he couldn't help but kiss back.

Booth kept his hands at Bones's sides, careful not to push, until he felt her hands making fast work of his belt buckle.

"I thought you were the one who said this wasn't a vacation – aren't we s'posed to be looking for Gorgonzola?" he asked.

Bones was doing that thing she did with her tongue that drove him crazy, moving lightly over his Adam's apple and then down over his collarbone. He was pretty sure he'd explode if those skilled hands of hers found their way into his shorts.

She sighed. "We are – you're right. I just…" She met his eye. "It's nice being away from home. It feels as though everything there has become so enmeshed with the cases we've dealt with this past year, or my memories of the attack, or the explosion at the Hoover… It's nice to have a dry slate."

He didn't even bother correcting her. "Tell you what, Bones – once this case is done, how about you and me take a real vacation? No cases, no drama, no snow, sleet, or freezing rain… Just us, a pitcher of margaritas, a big, soft bed, and an empty beach."

"I'd like that," she said. She leaned in and kissed him again, her body pressed against him, her hips rocking against his. "But you're right – we should go downstairs now, and help try to find the skeleton." She ran a hand over the ridge in his jeans, stroking him through the denim with an evil little smile. "Unless you want to stay here for a few more minutes, of course. That innkeeper did say the skeleton has to be inside the building – how difficult can it be to find?"

Booth's eyes fell shut; he did his best not to thrust into her hands, his breath getting a little ragged as she worked him. He found the hem of the turtleneck she was wearing and smiled at the feel of her warm, soft skin underneath. Despite how good it felt and how easy it was to get lost in her, part of him stayed focused on her reactions – so far, she hadn't tensed up, no change in her breathing. He opened his eyes, and looked into hers.

"We could be fast," she whispered, a guilty little smile on her lips.

"Yeah, Bones," he whispered back. "I can do fast."

She pushed him back toward the bed. He complied, careful to let her take the lead. This was new – so far, their lovemaking since she'd told him about the rape had been tender, slow, cautious. Filled with stops and starts, occasional tears. There was a spark in her eyes now that rocked Booth where he stood.

That spark faded a second later, however, when there was a knock at their door.

"Hey," Zoe shouted through the door. "You want to see the secret room where the skeleton was, or what? I've gotta start dinner soon."

Bones bit her lip – Booth couldn't tell if she was stifling the urge to laugh or cry.

"Yeah," he yelled back. "I'll be right down."

He waited until they heard Zoe's steps retreating down the hall before he said anything else.

"Sorry, Bones," he said. "Guess you're gonna have to wait for your quickie 'til later."

She sighed. Straightened her clothes, checked herself in the mirror, and waited for him to shift himself back to normal in his jeans before she reached for the door.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"Yeah, Bones – ready as I'll ever be. Let's go find this Gorgonzola thing already."

Bones pulled at the door. It held. She looked at him.

"What? Is it locked?" he asked. Behind him, Dosha was on her feet again, her lips pulled back in a snarl he'd never seen from the dog before. His stomach twisted.

Bones tried the door again. This time, it came open without a hitch. If it was anybody else, he would have thought they were just fucking with him. That wasn't really Bones's style, though.

Dosha darted out of the room as soon as the way was clear. Bones followed, Booth behind her. Just as he turned to close the door, a shadow caught his eye. He paused. He went back inside, a chill running up his spine. His eyes swept the room. Creepy paintings, lanterns, bed, fireplace. Nothing that hadn't been there before. He tried taking a steadying breath, walked out once more, and closed the door.

As he was walking away, Booth could have sworn he heard a child's laughter behind him.


	5. Chapter Four

_Chapter Four_

The stairs leading into the basement were made of narrow wooden planks that creaked under Brennan's weight. The walls were made of what appeared to be granite boulders of varying sizes, piled one against the other from the dirt floor to the wood-beamed ceiling. Every surface was coated with dust and spiderwebs, the air thick with the smell of damp earth and must.

Dosha immediately began inspecting every corner, her tail wagging and her nose to the ground. Brennan had been in such places innumerable times before – as such, she barely registered the atmosphere as being anything other than just another crime scene.

Booth, however, paused on the step behind her.

"What is it?" she asked. She was wearing her headlamp; when she turned to look at him, Booth held his hand up to shield himself from the glare.

"Nothing, Bones – it's just a little, you know… Creepy."

She did her best not to show her amusement – without success, apparently, because Booth immediately became defensive.

"You don't think this is even a little…" He made a sweeping gesture that seemed to include everything in the dank room.

"…Creepy?" she completed for him, using his word. "Sometimes I don't understand you at all, Booth." She took the last few stairs to the bottom, skimming the space with her headlamp. "You'll pursue armed criminals without a second thought, but the idea of ghosts and demons and other purely theoretical entities turns you into…"

She looked at him again, still frozen on the steps.

"Turns me into what, Bones?"

"A big damned sissy," came a voice from behind him. Booth jumped, then did his best to cover his reaction. Brennan squelched a smile.

"Jesus – give a guy a heart attack, why don't you?" He turned on the step, where Zoe was standing behind him with her hands on her hips.

"I figured I'd show you around a little, rather than having you plow through my place with those big federal mitts of yours. Now, can we get the lead out? If any of you plan on eating tonight, I need to get back to the kitchen."

Seeming somewhat chastened, Booth descended the last of the stairs and rejoined Brennan at the bottom.

* * *

><p>Brennan gauged the basement to be approximately 20x30 square feet – a large space, filled with broken chairs, the remains of what looked to be an old crib, unidentified boxes, and a rusted-out furnace draped in cobwebs. Her work coveralls over another layer of clothing did nothing to cut the biting chill of the room, and she and Booth could just barely stand up straight without hitting the ceiling. A single, rectangular window had been cut into the south wall, but no light filtered in thanks to the thick snow piled outside.<p>

Zoe led them to a darkened corner to the left of the stairs, her flashlight beam bouncing along the rough hewn wall. She pulled a string hanging from a single light bulb dangling from a network of wires, and the room was instantly cast in dim light and long shadows. The innkeeper pointed to a crawl space perhaps three feet high, several pieces of plywood pushed to the side next to it. Brennan felt her chest tighten briefly at the thought of the enclosed space, before she pushed the reaction aside.

This was her job.

"It's through there?" she asked.

Dosha came over and ducked her head inside, sniffing the air experimentally. Zoe nodded.

"I never even would've thought to look in there – it's been boarded off for as long as I've been here. We just always figured it was another weird storage nook… But it goes on a ways, and then there's a false wall at the end."

"It's not in the original building plans?" Booth asked. He crouched at the entrance and shone his flashlight inside the tunnel.

"What original plans?" Zoe asked, with a bit of a laugh. "Nobody knows how old this place is – or who built it, for that matter. The land was originally divided between the Horns and the Trefethens, back at the start of the 1800s. Sarah Albee bought it in 1888, and she just kept adding onto the place for the next thirty years…"

Brennan stopped listening at that point, focused instead on the secret tunnel and the hidden room that it led to. She felt a surge of excitement at the thought. Booth returned to the innkeeper's side to continue their exchange, and Brennan readjusted her headlamp and dropped to her hands and knees beside Dosha, who treated her to a couple of sedate dog kisses. She gently pushed the dog back, giving her the 'Wait' command; Dosha didn't look pleased, but she sat obediently nevertheless.

Brennan began her journey.

Just a foot or so into the narrow space, she stopped to inspect the thick wooden beams that formed the tunnel's support system.

"There are no signs of rot to the wooden infrastructure, Booth," she called back over her shoulder. "Between the beams and the granite, it looks quite solid. I'm going in."

The air was so musty that it was difficult to breathe, the smell of old, wet soil even stronger now. Moisture seeped through her coveralls and gloves, but the movement and the anticipation kept the cold at bay.

"Hey, Bones," she heard Booth call back to her, still at the mouth of the passage. "Where the hell are you going? We should secure the way – I should go first."

She could hear the reluctance in his tone. For all his heroics, she found it amusing how much Booth hated getting his hands – or his shoes, for that matter – dirty. And god forbid there be "creepy crawlies," as he called them.

"I'm fine, Booth," she called back. "You and Dosh can come through." She raised her head, to better train her light on the passage before her. "I can see the end," she almost shouted. Again, she felt that rush of excitement she had been missing on cases lately. "It looks like a door of some kind."

"Bones, just hang on a damned minute, wouldja?"

She heard scuffing coming from behind, and managed to turn enough to see Booth a few feet back, his penlight between his teeth and Dosha close on his heels.

"It's extraordinary they even found this," she said. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud in the small space.

"Yeah – it's great, Bones. How much farther?"

"I'm there." She crawled the last foot or two, then pushed experimentally against the small, heavy wooden door. It stuck for just a moment before it swung open on creaking hinges.

Brennan sat at the edge of the tunnel before actually entering the room, taking a moment to let her headlamp illuminate as many details as possible in the dark chamber.

It was difficult to gauge from where she was, but it appeared to be at least ten feet high, with walls of granite that – unlike the basement of the inn – had clearly been carved with great care and attention to detail. Clearly, this was a place that had once held great ceremonial significance.

"Are you going in or what, Bones? It's a little cramped in here."

Booth was so close that she could feel his breath on her neck. She dropped approximately three feet to the floor below, and waited for he and Dosha to do the same.

"How the hell did nobody know about this place?" Booth asked. His voice was hushed.

"How the hell did they make this place to begin with?" she countered.

A few tapestries, nearly deteriorated with age, hung on the granite walls. At the center of the space was a large, ornate wooden table, with ten beautifully crafted wooden chairs placed around it. A silver chalice – deeply tarnished and covered in dust – was centered at each place setting. Brennan picked one up carefully, with Booth looking on.

"There's something in it," she said.

"Please don't tell me it's a piece of somebody's brain."

"A piece of somebody's brain would presumably have decomposed by now," she said. "It looks like a shrimp fork."

He groaned.

"Why is that bad?"

"A shrimp fork so they can eat a piece of somebody's brain, Bones."

She did her best not to smile, and even managed to avoid rolling her eyes. "You have no evidence of that."

"The evidence is your department." He left her side to resume his own exploration. "Coming up with the theories so you can find the evidence to prove 'em? That's my department."

They continued exploring in silence until Brennan reached the far end of the room. Here, it was clear that the area had been disturbed – the dirt floor was scuffed and the cobwebs and dust displaced.

"This must have been where the skeleton was," she said.

"How the hell did anybody get the thing out of here? That tunnel isn't exactly built for two – especially if you're trying to keep a bag of bones in one piece."

"Maybe they didn't."

Booth flashed his light at her, a question clear in his eyes.

"Didn't get it out in one piece," she clarified. "We've worked with Gormogon sculptures before – they can be extremely unwieldy. It would certainly be simpler to move it in pieces."

"Yeah… I guess that makes sense. But if that's true, how did they get the table and chairs in here? You think they brought those in in pieces, too?"

She hadn't thought of that – which annoyed her. She hated it when Booth thought of things she didn't.

"Do you think there's another entrance?" She ran her hands along the walls, searching for a seam or an irregularity that might indicate a door of some kind.

"Maybe." Booth began inspecting the other side of the cavern. He called back to her as they worked. "You think we'll find the Ark of the Covenant down here?"

"If the Ark of the Covenant truly existed, which is doubtful, it would be much more likely to be found in the – " She stopped. "You were just joking."

"That's all right, Bones – I like it when you tell me stuff I already know. It is kinda cool down here though, don't you think? I mean – creepy as hell, but kinda cool, all the same. Parks would love this."

She smiled at the thought. "So would Dani," she said, thinking of the girl with whom Booth's son had been spending more and more time over the past two months. "We should take pictures for them."

Before Booth could reply, there was a loud thud and several small, cascading rocks fell from his side of the wall. He jumped backward.

"Or we can just bring them back a piece of the damn crypt – Jesus. Looks like I found something here."

She rushed to his side, honestly more concerned about the wall than with Booth's safety. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything – I was just feeling up the walls, same as you."

She nudged him out of the way impatiently. "You have to be careful when you're dealing with something this old. Everything is remarkably fragile – I've been on digs where human bones have literally disintegrated in my hands."

"Well, I didn't think that'd be a problem with a rock wall, Bones. Sooorry."

A few moments of silence ensued, while Brennan gently brushed rocks and debris out of the way. Dosha nosed delicately at the fallen rubble.

"What is it?" Booth asked, looking closely over her shoulder. She squelched the urge to push him back. It was a good thing they got along so well, because occasionally her partner honestly drove her crazy.

"It's not an exit, but it does look like a secret compartment of some kind." She flashed her light into the opening, which was eye-level and had been carved into the side of one of the rocks. It was only approximately six inches high, but could be as much as a foot deep, she gauged.

"There's nothing in it," Booth said, still close behind her. She turned around, and suddenly they were virtually nose to nose. He grinned at her.

"Hey, Bones."

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to get a look into the secret cubby there, but you're hogging all the light. Did anybody ever tell you you're not a lot of fun when it comes to long-lost, super-secret underground crypts? Didn't you learn anything from Indiana Jones?"

"So, that's what this is all about," she said, unable to keep from smiling this time. "You should have brought your hat."

Booth and Parker had insisted she sit down and watch all four of the Indiana Jones films a few weekends before. Once she had let go of the rational side of her mind, she did have to admit that she'd enjoyed them. She'd even gone so far as to purchase a Stetson fedora like the one Jones had worn in the movie, for Booth.

"Admit it, Bones," he said. He lowered his voice conspiratorially. Completely against her better judgment, Brennan found herself affected by the gravel in his tone. "That hat's as much for you as for me." He turned her around until she was standing with her back to the rock wall, Booth eying her with frank hunger from mere inches away.

It was the first time Booth had allowed himself to be sexually assertive with her since she had told him about the attack in Guatemala. She had missed that, she realized. At the same time, she felt an unwelcome pressure rise in her chest at the situation – the wall at her back, Booth blocking her ability to get away should the need arise.

As though just realizing what he had done, Booth suddenly stepped backward, a look of horror on his face.

"Jesus – I'm sorry, Bones. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Dr. Harper said not to – "

She grabbed his hand to keep him from retreating any further. "Dr. Harper also said that I'm getting better." She pulled him close once more – this time ensuring that he was the one up against the wall, while she had open air at her back. "You heard her at the last session – all those years, I didn't just shut down. I dealt with it in my way… It's not as though it just happened."

"Like the rape just happened," Booth said, his voice quiet now. Everything suddenly felt very, very still.

"Exactly." She nodded, though her eyes slid from his at the word, her cheeks burning.

"You have to say the words – she said that, too, Bones." His eyes were pained. She hated, suddenly, that she had brought this into their lives.

"I know that, Booth."

He searched her eyes. "You need to be able to talk about it with me – even if you don't say it to anybody else. Whatever happened out there…"

"I told you what happened out there." Her voice tensed along with her body.

Booth's arms loosened around her, but he didn't let her go. They stood that way for a few seconds – Booth's hands at her sides, their bodies close but not quite touching. He didn't say anything. She knew what he would say, though, if he dared: that she hadn't told him. Not really. She had told him about being chased in the jungles of Guatemala; about falling from a tree into the arms of three men who had been pursuing her all night.

The rest was up to him to imagine – the details seemed inconsequential to her. Whether they were spoken aloud or merely lived on in her mind, they were equally horrifying.

She knew they were not inconsequential to Booth, though.

"You're okay?" he asked.

She nodded. Despite her discomfort, she tried to keep her gaze open and her eyes on his.

"I'm okay, Booth," she said, as quietly as he. He looked relieved at her response. She leaned up and pressed her lips to his. "Now… We should really continue working – I thought our plan was to not let our personal relationship distract us from work."

He shrugged, a soft smile on his lips. "Yeah, well… The best laid plans, right, baby?"

After they'd parted, Brennan went back to contemplating the compartment in the stone wall as she pulled herself back together again, trying to ignore the tightness still blossoming in her chest and the weight that she could almost see on Booth's shoulders after their exchange. For the countless time since that night on the mountain in Washington, she cursed ever telling him the story of everything that had transpired in Guatemala.

They would both be better off, she was convinced, if she had simply remained quiet.

"What do you think was in there?" Booth asked.

Brennan forced herself back to the present; she'd almost forgotten what she was looking for. She trained her light on the bottom of the compartment.

"Whatever it was, it was here until just recently – there's a definite lack of dust and debris in that rectangular area there. Gauging by the size of the space and the imprint left behind, it could have been a box of some kind."

Booth looked more closely. "Or a book – look at the size. Maybe a ledger or something."

The thoughts were intriguing enough to make Brennan forget the gravity of just a few moments before.

"You think whoever took the skeleton took whatever was in here, too?" he asked.

"I don't know who else it could have been."

"It seems funny to me that this thing is here for fifty, maybe a hundred years, and nobody has a clue. But then it doesn't last five days once Zoe and her crypt keeper find this place."

Brennan had been thinking the same thing.

* * *

><p>She and Booth followed Dosha back through the tunnel a few minutes later, and trudged back up the worn stairs batting at the dust and cobwebs on their clothing. Several of the others were in the lobby waiting for them, deep in conversation. The minute Dosha rounded the corner, a bullet of white fur came dashing toward them.<p>

"Einstein!" Erin called sharply. The dog halted virtually in mid-air, and looked dejectedly behind him. Dosha's tail came up and waved cautiously as the other dog – a ragged-looking off-white terrier mix – approached at a more sedate pace.

"Is she okay with other dogs?" Erin asked.

Brennan nodded, though by that time there wasn't any need; the dogs were circling one another with tails wagging, sniffing and stiff-legged. The terrier was just slightly smaller than Dosha, his eyes perked forward as he dipped down on his front legs and yapped sharply.

The dogs began a mad game of chase in the front room, while Brennan and Booth rejoined the others.

Hodgins and Angela shared the sofa, while Sweets – still pale, but looking marginally better than he had – was seated in an armchair beside them. Diggs was at the fireplace, watching the dogs' antics with obvious amusement.

"So, I guess we don't need to worry about finding ways to entertain Stein while we're here," he said.

Erin didn't respond, focused on the dogs now, her manner more relaxed than Brennan had seen since they were introduced. The others in the room turned their attention to Booth and Brennan.

"So?" Angela prompted, when neither of them volunteered any information.

Booth looked pointedly at Diggs and Erin. "I'd like to set up a command post, and do a debrief there."

"We could help," Diggs said, seeming to sense he was about to be forced out of the investigation. "People around here trust me – they're not gonna give the Feds the time of day. If you're questioning people…"

Booth looked at Sweets, as though for confirmation. Sweets nodded.

"In an insular community like this one, someone on the inside would definitely be an asset."

A few seconds passed before Booth responded. "Okay, yeah – we can probably use you. But if it's all the same to you, I'd rather have you two split up. We're gonna start searching the inn for the skeleton, floor by floor."

He looked around, scanning the faces of each member of the group. "We're missing people," he said, an edge to his voice. "Where are Cam and Zack?"

"Cam's upstairs – no doubt getting her happy on," Angela said. "Tripp just got here a few minutes ago."

"And Zack?" Booth pressed.

Everyone looked around as though expecting the former intern to materialize from thin air. When he – predictably enough – did not, Booth told everyone to remain where they were, and hurried up the stairs.

A few minutes later, he returned with a chastened Zack in tow. The younger man's hair was wet, his face obviously freshly shaven.

"I was freshening up," he explained to Brennan. "I didn't have time before I left this morning. I didn't realize it would upset anyone if I took a shower."

"Nobody's upset," Booth said, his voice curt and not at all convincing. "Just try and stick with somebody else as much as you can. Now – we're gonna split up into teams to search this place."

Booth divided everyone into four teams – Angela, Erin, and Brennan; Cam and Hodgins; Tripp and Diggs; and Sweets, Zack, and Booth. As soon as partners were designated, the protests began. Booth whistled, long and loud and sharp, to silence the complaints.

"Look, I've got the gun – I'm in charge. This isn't high school gym class – you don't just pick your girlfriend and go make out under the bleachers 'til the bell rings. Sweets and Zack and me are taking the top floor; Tripp and the new guy get the third floor; Cam, Hodgins, second floor. Bones, Angela, Erin get the first floor. And don't look at me that way," he cautioned Cam, who looked undeniably disgruntled.

"You aren't technically the lead in this, Seeley," she sad. "You're here to watch Zack, but otherwise this isn't an FBI matter."

Tripp held up his hand. "You guys don't need to fight over me – I'll partner up with whoever wants me." Cam arched an eyebrow. "For the – uh, for the search, I mean. Otherwise, I'm with Cam." He flashed a charming smile at Diggs. "Sorry, Dann-O. Once we find the skeleton, you'll have to slum it with the redhead again."

Brennan saw Diggs and Erin glance at one another, then look away quickly. She wondered if Booth had noticed.

Once everyone had broken into their groups, Brennan issued instructions before they dispersed to begin searching the hotel.

"If you find the skeleton, it's very important that you do not touch it, under any circumstances. The crime scene and the remains have already been severely compromised, thanks to whoever removed them from the basement. Simply post someone to stand watch, and come get me."

"We're also looking for something that's maybe six by ten – a box, a book, something old and dusty," Booth said. "We're hoping it'll be with the Gorgonzola – "

"Gormogon," Brennan corrected him. He ignored her, though she could tell by the faintest smirk on his lips that he had said the word purposely – and was pleased that she had taken the bait.

" – the skeleton thing," he continued. "Same idea applies with that – you can look, but don't touch. Come get me or Bones."

"Come get me," Brennan said. Booth gave her a look. "This isn't your area of expertise," she defended herself. "All you would do is come get me and call it by the wrong name."

"All right, fine – if you find the book or the box or the skeleton or anything the least bit hinky, you come find Bones. Then she," he looked at her pointedly, "comes and finds me."

He waited until she'd nodded her assent before he dismissed everyone. They began their search.


	6. Chapter Five

_Chapter Five_

Against Booth's better judgment, Sweets pulled him aside before the briefing and insisted that they start their search on the fourth floor. Without an elevator. With him looking like death warmed over. Because the shrink was nothing if not totally goddamn logical. But, Booth did what the kid asked – he picked the teams, and he gave the assignment. Because that's what you did when you'd saved a guy's life; all logic just got thrown out the fucking window. And it took them about half an hour to climb four flights of stairs.

Once they got to the fourth floor, Sweets wasn't exactly looking like he was primed for a search.

"How many rooms are there?" he asked Booth.

The shrink was leaning against a backdrop of old flowered wallpaper, his head tipped back and his breath coming hard.

"Twenty. And the attic – but I'll check that out myself," Booth said. "You know, you didn't have to help. You should've hung out in the room, gotten a little sleep. We've got this."

"Yeah, right – because I haven't gotten enough sleep in the past two months." Sweets said the words low, like he wasn't sure he wanted Booth to hear. That was when it clicked for Booth – the whole thing. Why they were on this island in the first place; why Sweets had insisted on coming.

Why Daisy was noticeably not with them.

Maybe Zack wasn't the only one who had something to prove.

"All right," Booth said. He nodded toward the end of the long hallway. "You're so gung ho to help, you start there – me and Zack'll start on this end. We'll meet in the middle. And remember – you knock first. No answer, you use the key, let yourself in. Any sign that something's wrong, you come get me."

Booth saw just a flicker of doubt before Sweets manned up and nodded.

"Okay, sure – ten rooms each. That's fair."

Booth and Zack stood there for a couple minutes, watching Sweets shuffle down the hall.

"I don't think he should be doing this," Zack whispered to Booth, a little too loud. "he doesn't seem to be fully recovered from the shooting yet."

"He's not," Booth said. "That's _why_ we're gonna let him do this."

Zack looked at him blankly. "That makes no sense."

"Just trust me, would you? Now come on – let's do this already."

* * *

><p>It shouldn't have taken that long, really – ten rooms, and it wasn't like they were searching for something small. A whole damned skeleton was hard to hide, no matter how many pieces it might be in. But by the time he and Zack were done with their ten, Sweets hadn't reached the fifth room on his end.<p>

Booth sat down in the hallway and leaned back against the wall. The fourth floor was shut down in the winter, so it was cold; Booth felt damp, stale air seeping into his bones. Zoe had said the generator had been acting up, so the lights in the wall sconces up and down the hallway flickered every few minutes or so. In between, old paintings of Maine fishermen and portraits of ancestors just made the creepy vibe stronger than it already was.

Zack paced the hallway looking more and more frustrated, until finally he stopped moving and just stood there, looking down at Booth.

"We could help him – he's obviously having some trouble."

"We had a deal – ten rooms apiece. Take a seat, Zack."

"Perhaps I should go help on another floor."

"Nope – you're with me, buddy." He patted a spot beside him. "Pull up a patch of floor."

"But – "

"Sit your ass down, Zack," he said, dead calm. "We'll go when he's done."

Zack's eyes widened.

"It won't kill you to give him a few minutes," Booth said, lighter now. Zack sat down.

By room seven, Booth decided he had to give Sweets a hand or risk the shrink passing out cold. Or Booth dying of boredom, listening to Zack ramble on about bones and physics and imaginary girlfriends. He turned to the squint.

"You stay here. I'm gonna give him a hand – we'll be done in another few minutes."

"But I have to use the bathroom."

"There's a bathroom up here, right? Go ahead."

"I prefer to use my own."

Booth sighed. "Yeah. Of course you do. Fine – Knock yourself out. Come straight back here when you're done, though. No stops."

"In the loony bin, nobody cares when I use the bathroom."

"Yeah, well – once you get back to the loony bin, I don't care when you use the bathroom, either. Right now, though, it's all on my head. Now go already."

* * *

><p>Sweets was sitting on the edge of a double bed looking like he was about to pass out when Booth came in the room. He started to get up, first a little panicked and then a little guilty, before Booth waved him back down.<p>

"Relax. I just needed a break from the squint. How's it going?"

Sweets gave him a look. The stubborn façade that he was doing just fine was gone – now the shrink just looked beaten, and bitter as hell. "How does it look like it's going? Two months ago, I was running five miles a day. Now, I can't make it down a hallway without needing a nap."

"You've already come a hell of a long way from those first days in the hospital. You're lucky to be alive, Sweets. How about a little gratitude, instead of beating yourself up all the time?"

"I am grateful," Sweets said, though he mostly just sounded more bitter. "I am," he said again, a little softer this time. "Seriously. But it's just… It's never like this in the movies. The hero gets shot, and a scene later he's chasing the bad guys and making out with the leading lady."

Booth didn't say anything to that. It didn't really seem like there was much to say. Silence fell for a few seconds. The room was pretty much the same as all the others – antique furniture, creepy old paintings, flowered wallpaper, scatter rugs and wood floors. Sweets had turned on a table lamp with a guy that looked like the Gorton's fisherman on it, but otherwise the room was dark. Outside, snow was falling harder than ever, wind whistling outside the windows. It was only three in the afternoon, but it looked like dusk.

"When I talked to Daisy last, she said you were doing pretty good," Booth said, finally. "You got rid of the, uh… Thing, and everything."

Sweets pinked up for the first time since they'd left the mainland. "She _told _you that? _Dude_. See – this is why I can't…" He shook his head. "That is so not cool."

Booth took a seat at a little writer's desk by the window. The chair was too small for him, the way old furniture usually was – like somehow people had gotten bigger over the past hundred years or so, and now they were just this freak race of Neanderthals.

"Look, Sweets, it's not a big deal, okay? Once you've been in a war, you get to know pretty well all the ways a guy's body can turn against him. A temporary colostomy bag isn't the end of the world. You're getting better – and you're gonna keep getting better. A lot of guys would give anything if the worst thing that happened to them is they had to shit in a bag for a couple of months."

Sweets looked at him for a couple of seconds, obviously surprised. Booth got the feeling the kid hadn't been getting a lot of tough love in the past two months.

He nodded thoughtfully, after a while. "You're right, you know. I've just been feeling sorry for myself because things have changed, but the truth is I'm lucky to be alive. I just need to be reminded of that sometimes, I guess."

"Well, that's what I'm here for."

They stayed there for another couple of seconds, until things started to feel awkward. Booth nodded toward the door.

"Now, is it okay with you if I go ahead and search the last three rooms? Or do I need to keep pretending you're not about to drop?"

Sweets swung his feet up on the bed and lay down, waving his hand toward the door. "Yeah, go. I'm just gonna lie here for a while, if it's all right with you. Come get me when you're finished."

Booth's hand was on the doorsill and he was just about to step into the hallway when he heard it – a sharp crack that seemed to echo through the house, and instantly sent his heart pounding.

"Get down," he shouted back over his shoulder to Sweets, who'd gone three shades paler than he'd already been.

"Was that…?" Sweets asked.

"Yeah," Booth confirmed without hesitation. After all these years, there wasn't a doubt in his mind when he heard a gunshot. "I'm gonna go see what's going on – I want you to lock the door behind me, and then get behind the bed. Don't move 'til I come for you."

For a second he was worried the kid hadn't heard him; Sweets just sat there, bolt upright on the bed, his eyes wider than Booth had ever thought possible.

"Sweets," he said, doing his best to sound calm. "We're okay – it was probably nothing. I'm just being careful, you know? Now, do what I said: lock the door, get behind the bed. Wait for me to come for you. Got it?"

His tone did the trick. Sweets pulled himself together, and waited by the door with Booth while he checked the hall, his gun up and close to his body, a cool, dead calm taking hold. He flashed back to the day in the Hoover – checking stairwells; peering down hallways littered with bodies; his hands clamped hard over a gaping wound in Sweets's side.

"Stay here," he whispered to Sweets.

* * *

><p>After that single shot, Booth heard no others. He tried to place it in his head, but the inn was huge and with the wind outside and the echoes inside, it was impossible to tell exactly where it came from. He knew it wasn't the fourth floor, though. Once he knew Sweets was set, he headed down the first flight of stairs. The third floor was empty, except for a young couple coming out a door at the end of the hall. Cam and Hodgins must have already finished checking the rooms.<p>

Booth stopped the couple and nodded toward their door. "I need you to go back in your room for a little while."

The man was probably in his thirties, with a scruffy goatee and clothes that smelled like motor oil and whiskey. The woman looked younger – a lot younger, though her eyes belonged to somebody who'd seen way too much in too few years. She glanced at Booth, then at the man she was with before she looked away, fast, like she was afraid to meet his eye. Booth found himself immediately on guard.

"What's going on?" the man demanded. "Somebody just came through here and wanted to look through our room – now you're saying we've gotta stay in here. What the fuck's the problem?"

"Paul," the woman whispered. "It's okay."

"Shut up, Sophie," he growled. "Don't tell me what's okay and what ain't. We pay good money to stay here – if Zoe's got something goin' on, it's got nothin' to do with us."

Booth felt his blood pressure rise about six points. "Did you hear something a few minutes ago?"

"Something like what?" the man demanded. "We've been watching a movie. Now, our boys are waitin' on us – we need to go get them."

"You have kids in the building?"

"Yeah – two boys. There's a couple kids that live on the second floor. They got a Wii – they're playing down there."

The man might just be pissed off, but Booth's intensity was getting through to the woman. She gnawed on a ragged edge of thumbnail, her voice soft when she spoke.

"What kind of sound should we have heard? Is there something going on? If something happened – "

Booth shook his head. "Nothing happened. Just, please, go back in your room. I'll bring your boys back here, and you can just go back to your afternoon. What are their names?"

"Will and Sam," the woman answered, when it was clear the man wasn't gonna say another word.

Booth didn't move until they'd both gone back into their room, then he kept his back to the wall as he headed for the room he knew Zack was staying in. The first time he knocked, there was no answer. A few seconds passed. He knocked again, louder this time. Finally, Zack appeared, out of breath and looking a little freaked out.

"I was just on my way back up," he said. He blocked the door so Booth couldn't see inside.

"Yeah, you look like it. Did you hear a gunshot?"

Zack wasn't what you'd call a good liar, so Booth believed him when the squint looked shocked and shook his head. "Was somebody shot?"

"I'm not sure yet – that's what I'm trying to figure out. You mind if I come in?"

"Shouldn't you be trying to find the shooter?"

"I am," Booth said, forcing his way through. Zack stood aside, but not by choice.

He was about to turn the place upside down, convinced that Zack was hiding something, when Tripp stood in the doorway, out of breath.

"You heard it?" he asked Booth.

Booth nodded. "You know where it came from?"

"Follow me."

He ordered Zack to stay put with the door locked until he came back, and followed Tripp down to the second floor.

* * *

><p>Hodgins, Cam, and Diggs were all in a suite on the second floor, packed in with five kids and a Wii. Diggs was playing a game of tennis with two of the kids while Cam and the others watched. None of them looked all that concerned. Hodgins, on the other hand, looked like he was about to have a stroke.<p>

"We were next door when we heard it," Cam said. "It just came out of nowhere – but by the time we got into the hallway, nobody was there."

"So it came from this floor, then?" Booth asked.

"My ears are still ringing," Diggs said. "It couldn't have been more than ten feet away."

"We figured the best thing to do was stay put and keep everybody calm," Tripp added.

"It's nothing, though, right?" Cam asked. She looked pointedly at Hodgins. "Please tell him it's nothing."

All five kids turned to look at Booth interestedly. He didn't answer for a second, stuck on the faces in front of him. Two boys… He remembered the scared young woman's words a few minutes earlier. Will and Sam. A thin boy with a dirty face and blonde hair that stuck up in the back stared at him, something that looked a hell of a lot like hope in his eyes for just a second, before it faded.

"Booth?" Hodgins pressed.

"Yeah," he said absently, his eyes still on the boys. "I'm pretty sure it's nothing."

He crouched down by Sam. "You remember me?" he asked.

The boy nodded silently. His arm had healed from the summer before, when Booth had first seen the brothers with their mother. He'd been helping out at a medical clinic with Bones, during his Outward Bound course.

"What happened to your mom?" he asked. He didn't want the answer, he realized.

"She's dead," the younger boy said, when Sam didn't say anything. He said it so simply – resigned, like this was just the way things went. Kids should have more hope than that at eight years old, Booth thought.

"You're staying with your dad?"

Sam nodded. His eyes skated away for a second, like he felt guilty about something.

"I tried to call those numbers you gave me," he finally said, whispering. "Dad found 'em, though. He said if I tried again…"

Booth straightened, his hand on the boy's thin shoulder. "I want you and your brother to stay here, okay? These guys are gonna stay with you. You're gonna lock the door. If anybody comes, you tell them you can't open the door 'til I say. That includes your dad," he added.

He spoke to the others in the room, everybody trying not to seem like they were wondering what the hell was up with him and the boy.

"Lock the door after I go," he said.

"I'm coming with you," Hodgins said, practically running for the door. Booth stood in front of him, blocking his way.

"No way – you're staying here."

"But Angie – "

"- is fine," Booth said. "And she'll kick my ass from here to hell and gone if something happens to you two months before she has your kid. So sit the f- uudge down," he caught himself just in time, all five kids still watching him closely. "And wait 'til I come for you."

The squint started to argue, but Booth stopped him with a glance.

"These are the only people on the floor?" he asked, once Hodgins was back where he belonged.

"Mr. Tolliver's at the end of the hall," Sam said. "He doesn't come out 'til dinner. And Etta and Janie live in 2D. There's a bake sale at the church, though – they've been there all day."

"Apparently during the winter, some families move into the inn instead of paying to heat their own homes," Cam explained.

"It's nicer this way," a little dark-haired girl said. She pushed the remote control toward him. "You wanna play?"

Booth shook his head, his mind on the people who still weren't accounted for.

"Maybe later, okay? Now, you remember what I said, right? Everybody stays here 'til I come for you. You don't open the door for anybody but me." He looked directly at Cam when he said it. She got the message.

"That's right. We're gonna stay here and hang out for a while longer."

He and Tripp left the room, waiting until Booth heard the door lock before he went any further.

"I need to show you something," Tripp said, the second they were alone.

He strode down the hall and stopped in front of a door with 2G on it. Booth followed. The other man nodded toward faded wallpaper with roses and tiny triangles on it.

And something else. Booth winced.

"Blood spatter."

Tripp nodded. "I heard a struggle out here - I was just about to check it out when the gun went off. Everybody took cover. By the time I got here, this door was slamming shut."

"So they're in there?" Booth asked, a little pissed that nobody had mentioned that sooner.

"Not anymore. Zoe might think there's no way out of here, but apparently she's been misinformed."

He opened the door while Booth kept his gun raised, in case someone had found their way back in there.

The room was empty. Tripp went over to a tall window and pointed to the windowsill.

More blood.

"So, they're outside this room. They fight. Somebody gets shot – and dragged through the room and out the window?"

"That's what I'm thinking," Tripp confirmed. "I would've come for you sooner, but I figured it would be a good idea for everybody to stay put 'til we were all on the same page."

"Yeah – good call."

He had to admit, he felt a little better knowing that the shooter wasn't still hiding somewhere in the hotel. On the other hand, they were still on the island. And the case he and Bones had thought was long-dead had just come back to life. With a vengeance.

* * *

><p>Booth and Tripp went down and did a cursory check of the lobby and the dining room, though Booth wasn't too concerned anymore. In the kitchen, something was boiling over on a six-burner gas range. Tripp turned down the heat while Booth scanned the large space, his eyes skimming past ingredients and spices and pots and pans, a stainless steel industrial dish washer…<p>

And not another soul.

"Where do you think they went?" Tripp asked.

Booth shrugged, honestly baffled, until he caught sight of a large steel door set in one wall.

A walk-in freezer.

Somebody barked from inside. Booth was assuming it wasn't Bones or Angela.

Angela, Zoe, Bones, and an older couple Booth had never seen before, all sat huddled on buckets and barrels at the far end of the freezer. Dosha bolted out like she'd been shot from a cannon.

"Everybody okay?" he asked.

There were shivering nods all around. He and Tripp stood to the side as everybody filed back into the kitchen.

"What the hell was that?" Angela asked.

"It came from the second floor," he said. He glanced at the older couple, who looked a little shell shocked. "Maybe you two should get a drink or something. Everything's fine – you can go on into the dining room if you want."

Zoe served up two black teas, bitching the whole time. As soon as the couple was out of hearing range, Booth lowered his voice.

"We found blood in the hallway, but no sign of the shooter or a body. It looks like they went out the window."

Zoe came rushing back into the room like she was on fire. "Do me a favor, would you? The next time you hear a little commotion, you mind leaving me to die? I was in the middle of my stew when this one," she nodded toward Brennan, "strong arms me and my guests into the freezer. All over a single fuckin' gunshot."

"She was just trying to keep everybody safe."

"Well, mission accomplished." The woman was back in front of the stove, stirring what smelled to Booth like God's gift to beef stew. Despite everything, his stomach rumbled. "You might shut down the city for one shot back home, but here, you just figure somebody misfired– and hopefully no one was in the way when it happened. And then, you keep cooking."

Zoe kept bitching, but Booth had already moved onto the next thing. Namely, a head count.

"We've got everybody accounted for except your friend there, Ange," he said. "Erin?"

"She took her dog for a walk. Said she needed some air."

Putting her exactly where she shouldn't be, Booth figured. Dammit. Why couldn't anybody just stay where they were supposed to?

"I'll go find her," he said. He hesitated, thinking once more about the boys on the second floor. The boys with the dead mother and the drunk father, locked in a room waiting for him to come save them.

"Zoe, what have you got for law out here?"

"You mean cops?" she asked doubtfully.

"Yeah. Cops. Jail. If somebody went postal out here, you must have some way of handling it, right?"

She pressed her lips together, her eyes darkening. "That's not usually a big concern. You got anybody in mind?"

Bones was watching him curiously. He felt a weird sense of urgency, like something was about to happen. Something he had to stop.

"What can you tell me about the family on the third floor – with the boys?"

And all of a sudden, understanding blossomed. Zoe's face went even darker. "This is about Paul?"

"Not the gunshot," Booth assured her. At least, he didn't think the gunshot had anything to do with him. "But the boys… How well do you know them?"

"His first wife used to live out here – she died a few months back. Paul got in touch with her family, but they're only here in the summers. He asked me if he could stay here for the winter – just 'til they got back on their feet. He seemed nice enough on the phone."

"And then…?" Booth prompted.

"And then he shows up with his child bride and two boys half the size they should be who jump at their own shadows. I put two and two together. Figured the least I could do was make sure the kids had a roof over their heads and good food in their bellies for a few months."

His opinion of Zoe skyrocketed. The news didn't do much for his views on the father, though. Booth figured there wasn't much that would change that, though.

"What's going on?" Bones asked. She pulled him to the side.

He shook his head. "I'll explain later," he said. "But I want you to see if you can get in touch with some kind of local law enforcement. I've got a feeling we're gonna need them."

_TBC_

* * *

><p><em><strong>I know we've been woefully short on the sexin' up to this point, but we're building a story here, people. ;)<strong> **And next week, just for those of you who feel like we haven't gotten enough B/B quality time between the sheets, I vow that that will be remedied. So, next week... Hauntings, sexy timz, imaginary girlfriends, and Sam and Will get a helping hand. Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to leave a little comment-love! **_


	7. Chapter Six

_Chapter Six _

As soon as it seemed clear that they were out of danger, Brennan insisted on going directly to the site where the shot had been heard and Booth and Tripp had subsequently found the blood, in order to begin gathering evidence. First, Booth went up to retrieve Zack and let Sweets know that everything was all right. Brennan, meanwhile, went to the second floor to give Diggs and Cam the news that it was safe to come out. She found Diggs playing video games, seemingly quite content, with a group of five children. Cam didn't look nearly so at ease.

"Did you figure out what happened?" she asked, as soon as she'd opened the door to Brennan.

"Booth thinks the shooter went out the window in the next room – and took his victim with him."

"So, somebody really got shot?" one of the children asked. He was a blonde boy, undernourished by the look of him, and badly in need of a haircut. Brennan was certain she had seen the child before, but couldn't place him.

"Yes," she agreed. "In the next room."

"But we're gonna catch whoever did it," Cam said quickly. "So, there's no reason for you guys to worry."

Brennan refrained from pointing out that there was, in fact, every reason for all of them to worry, since she assumed such frankness would be frowned upon where children were concerned. Diggs relinquished his video game controller and stood.

"So, that was a nice little reprieve." He lowered his voice. "Is everybody okay?"

"Everyone in our group is, as far as I know," Brennan said. She hesitated.

"What about Sol – uh, Erin?" he asked. "Is she downstairs?"

Again, she hesitated. Diggs took a step closer. He was an attractive man, as Angela had said – as tall as Booth, and nearly as well-built, with curly brown hair that, she suspected, grew significantly lighter in the summer sun. His brown eyes took in her trepidation, darkening with concern.

"You don't know where she is?" he guessed, before she'd said a word.

"She said she had to make some telephone calls. I told her that Booth wanted us to say together, but she was very insistent."

A look of annoyance flashed across his face. "Trust me, I know – short of handcuffing her, you wouldn't have been able to keep her in one place if she didn't want to be there. But you don't know where she went?"

"She said the reception was best outside."

His concern was clearly growing – understandably so, Brennan thought. "How long ago?"

Brennan checked her watch. It was nearly four o'clock. "Thirty minutes or so. We were searching the kitchen."

"Dammit." He frowned, and turned to Cam. "You think the kids will be okay? I should go look for her."

Cam flashed a look at Brennan, who nodded. "We've got them covered," Cam said. "Do you need some help looking for her?"

"Not yet – let me just take a quick look around. She gets cagey sometimes, but I'm sure she's not far."

"Let us know if you need a hand," Cam said, but Diggs was already out the door.

Which left Brennan and Cam, with five expectant young faces looking into theirs.

"So, Booth said it's okay for us to leave them?" Cam asked doubtfully.

"We'll just be down the hall," Brennan reassured her.

The blonde boy in the group was watching Brennan. He sat slightly apart from the others, with an air that seemed much older than his years. When their eyes met, Brennan recalled where she had seen him before. She thought of the look on Booth's face when he had come for them moments before; of his intensity when he had questioned Zoe about the family living on the third floor. The presence of this boy and his brother from the previous summer went a long way in explaining his attitude.

Brennan smiled at the boy." "We've met before, haven't we?" she asked.

He nodded, though he had yet to speak.

"My partner told you to stay here? To wait for him to return?"

Again, a nod.

"Okay. That's what you should do, then. He'll be here in a few minutes, and then we'll all go downstairs and get something to eat." She looked at Cam, hoping to get an indication that this seemed like a reasonable plan. Cam nodded gamely.

"Yes – Absolutely. You guys stay here," Cam said. "Play one more round of your game, and then we're all gonna go downstairs and see what Zoe's cooked up. And we'll just be down the hall, if you need us."

"I want to see my mom," a small brunette girl said. Her voice quavered, precariously close to tears.

"You can – you just have ten minutes, sweetie. Tops," Cam promised her. "I just want to get the final okay, and then the big guy who was here before will come back. You remember him?"

Brennan looked at her curiously. The children nodded.

"Tripp," the little girl said, smiling at the name. "He's coming back?"

"He's coming back," Cam promised. "And he'll take you guys downstairs. And all your moms and dads will be there, and we'll go back to having a normal day. Deal?"

They all nodded. Once it was clear that everyone was all right with the arrangement, Cam and Brennan left the room and started down the hall.

"Thank God for Tripp, is all I can say," Cam said.

"He was helpful?" Brennan asked.

"He's amazing. Kids just love him – he turned the whole thing into a game. If it had been me, I would have freaked them all out and there would have been a mini-revolt."

"He does have a very reassuring way about him," she agreed. "Booth's like that, as well."

"Yeah – Seeley's great with kids. But you're no slouch yourself. You're a lot better with them than I am."

Brennan turned to her in surprise. "You really think so?"

"Oh God, yes," Cam said. "You and Booth will be great at that whole parenting thing. A little neurotic, maybe, but what parent isn't?"

Brennan considered this for a moment with a smile, before she pulled herself back to the issue at hand.

"Booth said the blood was to the left of room 2G," she said. "That should be the next door down."

Cam nodded seriously, with what sounded like a relieved sigh. "Right. Blood. Carnage. Crime scene. The things I do best."

Brennan surveyed the corridor, taking note that the door to room 2G was standing slightly ajar, while all of the other doors in the hallway were tightly closed. She pulled plastic booties and latex gloves from her kit, procuring a pair for herself and handing another set to Cam before they went any further. While she was pulling on her booties, she noted that an oil painting of an ocean scene had been knocked askew, two or three feet to the left of room 2G.

She picked her steps carefully on the wooden floorboards, doing her best not to disturb any trace evidence that might have been left by the perpetrator or the victim. She had just reached the section of wallpaper where the blood spatter had been left when a door opened behind her, on the opposite side of the corridor.

"Psst."

She and Cam turned to find a small, elderly man with glasses peering out, his door cracked just slightly.

"Are you for or against us?" he asked, in a loud whisper.

Cam looked at her. She shrugged. "We're with the police," Brennan said.

"But are you for or against us?" he persisted, his tone more urgent.

Cam hesitated. "If those are our only choice, I'm gonna go with for." She smiled pleasantly. "What's your name, sir?"

He opened the door a bit wider, looking up and down the corridor before he answered. "Jack Tolliver. _Esquire. _I took a class, got myself a certificate in the mail. Twenty-nine ninety-nine. A friend of mine's still paying for his idiot son – and he went to school thirty years ago. It's started, hasn't it?"

Brennan was baffled, trying to follow the old man's logic. "What's started?"

The insurrection," he said, lowering his voice once more. "The fight between the dead and the living. They're trying to pull us over to their side, you know. I can feel it."

Cam's eyebrows climbed higher up her forehead. "Well, we're definitely _not _for that. We didn't actually get the memo on an insurrection – we're just here working on a case."

"I saw a dead man attack, not an hour ago," he said seriously. "A skeleton with gleaming body armor beat a man until he fell down dead, right over there. How do you explain that?"

"That is a tough one," Cam said dryly.

"What's he talking about?" Brennan whispered.

Cam ignored her. "Mr. Tolliver, we're just going to be next door here, trying to get some more information on this… Zombie attack – "

"Not a zombie!" he interrupted, incensed. "A _skeleton. _A reanimated skeleton of pure silver."

Brennan grabbed Cam's arm excitedly. "He means the Gormogon skeleton." She addressed the man directly. "Was this skeleton all silver? Or did you see bone, as well?"

"It happened very quickly – that's the way they move, you know," he said seriously. "Reanimated skeletons with the reflexes, speed, and strength of a supernatural Lance Armstrong."

"Well, that must have been terrifying," Cam said evenly. "Why don't you go inside your room and, if you don't mind, just write up a description of what happened. It could be very helpful to the case."

"Of course. You'll come back for it later?"

"Oh, definitely. You can count on us."

"_Amor fagdat superiorum,_" he said. "That's Latin for, 'The Living Shall Prevail.'"

"No, it isn't," Brennan said. "It isn't Latin for anything. _Amor _means – "

Cam touched her arm, leveling a gaze at her. "We'll be back later, Mr. Tolliver. Thank you for all your help."

Brennan watched, dismayed, as the odd little man returned to his lair. She listened as locks clicked into place, then turned to Cam.

"He saw the Gormogon skeleton."

"I think you're right."

"Well, then, why aren't we questioning him? He's the only solid lead we've gotten thus far."

"And he's not going anywhere," Cam said. "Let's get the crime scene processed, and then we can let Seeley question the crazy old man while we do what we do best. Fair enough?"

Brennan considered protesting further, but had to admit the plan was sound. She nodded.

"See, this is why I have to keep an eye on you two every second," Booth said, from behind them. Brennan turned to find he, Zack, and Hodgins ascending the staircase. "Leave you alone for a couple minutes, and you end up hanging out in the halls, gossiping like a couple of old women."

"We were just questioning a witness," Brennan said, aware by the tone and the smirk and the fact that this was, after all, Booth, that he was teasing her. It was something he never seemed to tire of.

"Find out anything interesting?" he asked.

"Aside from the fact that there's apparently a war waging between us and the undead…?" Cam asked.

"Please," Hodgins scoffed. "Like that's news."

"Anything else?" Booth pressed.

"Mr. Tolliver said he saw the Gormogon skeleton," Brennan said. "That's what he said – he described a skeleton of silver."

"And Mr. Tolliver also said that that skeleton of silver moved like the ghost of Lance Armstrong," Cam added dryly. "So, we're not stopping the presses on this just yet."

"Still," Booth said, "The silver skeleton thing can't be a coincidence. I'll have a talk with him, see what he has to say." He looked at Cam, more serious now, and nodded his head toward the other end of the hallway. "How're the kids? Everybody okay?"

"They're a little shaken up," Cam said. "And they want to see their parents. I told them you'd come talk to them, and then Tripp would come bring them down for dinner." She lowered her voice. "I'm assuming there's something going on with one of the parents?"

"Those boys," Brennan interjected. "They were from the medical clinic we volunteered at last summer – during the Outward Bound course."

Booth nodded, his gaze focused on her now. "Their mom died – they're staying here with their father."

She was silent for a moment, remembering the defeated woman she had met less than a year before, her body covered in bruises.

"That's why you asked Zoe to get the police?" she asked. "For the boys?"

Booth's jaw tightened. "There's no way in hell I'm letting them go with him. Not again. He's done."

"I don't know if it's that simple," Cam began.

"Well, I'm making it that simple," he said shortly. It was his end-of-discussion voice; Brennan recognized it from a thousand conversations with him in the past. She knew better than to try and reason with him now – though, in her opinion, his decision was the best one for the boys in this case.

Cam nodded. "All righty then. So… You want to take care of them, while we process the scene?"

"Yeah. But first," he nodded toward the wall. "I wanted you to take a look at this. The blood didn't look right to me."

"What do you mean, didn't look right? As in, not really blood?" Brennan asked.

"No – it's definitely blood. But I didn't see a bullet hole – not on this wall, and not on the one across the hall. If somebody was shot, the bullet had to go somewhere, right? If there'd been no exit wound, there wouldn't be all this spatter."

Cam raised an eyebrow at him. "Wow – somebody's been doing his homework. You keep this up, and you're gonna put us out of work."

"Just doin' my job, Camille. You guys forget I'm more than just a pretty face." Brennan raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. "And Bones taught me a bunch of this blood spatter stuff last week."

"I figured," Cam said.

The pathologist pulled on her latex gloves and began examining the area, moving as carefully as possible in order to minimize her impact on the crime scene. Brennan did likewise, moving closer to the wall. The blood spatter was approximately 170 centimeters off the ground, with the largest drops measuring more than two millimeters in diameter. She and Cam looked at one another at the same time, but Hodgins was the one who spoke the words.

"Booth is right – there is something weird. That blood didn't come from a gunshot."

Booth looked at them. "What do you mean, it's not from a gunshot? What the hell else would it be from? Everybody said the gunshot came from right here, right?"

"It did," Cam said quickly. "Trust me – I know a gunshot when I hear one. Especially when it's just down the hall. But see the drops here? They're too big, and there are too few of them."

"Whoever it was, they were hit with something," Hodgins said. "Something big, by the look of it. Maybe a bat, or a club."

"Not somebody's fist?"

Zack shook his head. "There's too much blood for that, and the drops are the wrong size and shape for what you'd typically see in a hand-to-hand assault."

"So, what the hell happened?"

Brennan pushed the door to 2G open wider, conducting a cursory examination of the space before she'd set foot inside the room. It was similar to the others she'd seen in the hotel: private bath, four-poster double bed, fireplace, desk and chair. The chair had been overturned, and was lying a few feet from the bed.

"There's some blood on the windowsill," Booth told her.

Hodgins knelt just inside the doorway, examining what appeared to be imprints of a boot tread on the carpet. Booth picked his way carefully to the fireplace and knelt down, putting his hand in the ashes.

"You'd think Zoe would make sure all the fireplaces were cleaned out between guests, wouldn't you, Bones?"

She barely registered the words, intent on her own objectives. She opened the window and peered outside, blinking against harsh winds and snow that limited her visibility to just a few feet. To the left of the window, a rope ladder hung suspended from a window in the room above.

"Have you checked for a blood trail outside?" she asked Booth.

"Yeah. It's snowing like a son of a bitch out there, though – anything that might've been there is gone now."

He went and carefully picked up the desk chair, examining scuff marks on the floor to determine where it had been before it had fallen. When he set it back upright, he'd arranged it just a foot or so from the side of the bed.

"Does this seem like a weird place for a chair, Bones? You'd think it would just be with the desk – that's the way the set up is in all the other rooms."

"It wouldn't be, if someone was on the bed," she noted. She went to the bed. "There are indentations, and the bedcovers are rumpled – as though someone was sitting here, as well. Zoe was certain no one was staying in this room?"

"As far as she knew, 2G's been empty for the past couple of months," Booth confirmed. He came over and did his own examination, pausing at the foot of the bed. "What's that look like to you?"

She leaned closer. "Dirt."

Booth nodded. She studied the impressions in the bedclothes, her brow furrowed as she processed what she was seeing.

"Someone was sitting on the bed with their shoes, on, their back against the headboard."

Booth began examining the bedposts. She came over and stood beside him, peering over his shoulder. He turned with a little smile, an eyebrow raised.

"Did you want to do this?" he asked.

"No, you're doing fine."

He didn't say anything, but neither did he make any move to continue.

"You want me to move back," she guessed.

"Just an inch or two, Bones. Crime scene investigation isn't a contact sport, you know."

She backed off. "What do you think happened?"

He pointed to a series of scratches on the left bedpost. "I think either this room's been used recently for a little recreational bondage, or somebody was being held here."

"But Cam said she heard someone arguing in the hallway. And they fled through the window. Why would they start here, go into the hall, and then come back and escape through the window? Why leave the room at all?"

Hodgins, Zack, and Cam all gathered in the doorway, listening. Booth licked his lips and scratched his neck – tics she'd observed when he was buying time, before he gave voice to a theory. She waited for him to work out the details, thinking the scenario over herself at the same time.

"Let's say we've got somebody right here – " Booth went to the chair and sat back down. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. "He gets a little sleepy, maybe nods off. And then you've got guy number two – our vic – sitting up in bed, hands tied to the bedposts, just waiting for his shot to get away."

"He gets loose," Brennan picked up where he'd left off. "And makes a run for it."

"But he doesn't get far," Booth continued, "before our bad guy wakes up. He pushes the chair back, knocks it over, and gets across the room just as his prisoner gets out the door. There's a struggle. The gun goes off…"

"But no one was shot," Brennan reminded him. "We don't even have a bullet hole."

Booth went to the doorway and stood there for a moment, just inside the room. "Maybe he doesn't want to shoot the guy, though – he just wants to scare him. So, he doesn't fire _at _our guy. He fires…" He looked up, scanning the ceiling. Brennan followed his gaze.

"Into the ceiling," she said. Sure enough, there was a neat round hole in the ceiling, just inside the door.

"So," Booth said, "he stands here. Fires a warning shot…" He held up his hand and mimed shooting a gun. "But that doesn't stop our vic – so he has to resort to actually attacking the guy."

"Which means he'd have to put the gun away, come up with something bigger to hit him with, come around on the _other _side of the vic," Cam said, "and hit him with enough force to cause that kind of spatter pattern. All in the time it took for us to hear the shot and for Tripp to go out after the shooter."

"It's highly unlikely," Brennan agreed. "Between the time the shot was fired and the time the physical injury was inflicted on the victim, he would have had to completely alter both his center of gravity and his trajectory."

The group stood there in silence for several seconds, considering this.

"Unless he wasn't alone," Zack said. Brennan looked at him in surprise. Booth looked physically pained at the implication of what Zack had suggested.

"What do you mean?"

"If someone was waiting for him in the corridor, they may have caught him off guard and been able to strike a blow that would account for this type of splatter pattern," Zack explained.

"That would make the most sense," Brennan agreed reluctantly.

"So, what about your witness's story – that the Gormogon skeleton was out here?" Booth asked.

"And that _it _attacked somebody?" Cam asked, her skepticism plain. "Sorry, Seeley, but that's a little too Night of the Living Dead for me."

"Could being struck with an object made of silver have carried enough force to create that spatter pattern?" Brennan asked. "Something the size and shape of a human bone, for example."

"Just so we're clear, we're still talking about a human skeleton attacking somebody?" Cam said.

"Or someone _using _a human skeleton to attack someone," Brennan corrected her.

Booth looked at her in surprise, a smile touching his lips. "Is she right?" he asked Zack. "You take a femur made of silver, maybe – that'd be as good as a baseball bat, right?"

Zack and Hodgins looked at one another. "I couldn't say for certain without simulating the attack in a controlled environment," Zack said.

"Yeah, well, this is as controlled as it's gonna get," Booth said. "Guesstimate, remember? What do you think?"

With great reluctance, Zack finally nodded. "Theoretically, yes. I could do some calculations, but… Yes. If someone were standing here with the skeleton, and they used one of the bones of silver as a weapon…"

"So, there you go," Booth said quickly. "One vic, one Gorgonzola skeleton, and two perps clubbing people with silver leg bones. That's what we're lookin' for."

He began walking down the hall toward the children's room, calling back over his shoulder as he went.

"You guys see what you can do here to find out anything else. I'm gonna talk to the kids, and then see if we can round up some suspects and start getting a few questions answered."

Hodgins was already at work photographing boot prints and gathering samples of trace evidence. Zack looked at Brennan questioningly.

"Do you want me to go back to my room?"

"No – of course not, Zack," she said. "You're here to assist. I'd like you to work with Angela to recreate the circumstances of the attack. We should be able to tell a great deal from the evidence we have here; I want to know the size of our victim, the extent of his injuries, and – if it was, in fact, one of the Gormogon bones that was used – which bone would have inflicted the damage."

Zack hesitated for another moment.

"What's on your mind, Zack?" Cam prompted him.

"Gormogon's Apprentice would never have done this," he said. "The Gormogon skeleton is a sacred object – whoever is doing this has been carrying it around as though it was nothing more than…"

"A bag of bones?" Cam suggested.

"Precisely. And then to attack someone with it? This isn't typically my area – these aren't facts, I know that. This is just a feeling."

"But it's a feeling based on something you've spent a whole lot of time thinking about, I'm guessing," Cam said. "We'll keep it in mind, Zack. I think you're probably onto something."

He nodded. A few moments passed before he looked at Brennan, a look very much like pleading in his eyes.

"You still want me to work on the science, right? Gathering the evidence, creating scenarios based on that evidence?"

It was the reason she had been drawn to Zack in the first place, Brennan realized suddenly. That need to make sense of the world using empirical data and incontrovertible facts. He drew as much comfort from these things as she did. She nodded, resting a hand on his arm.

"Yes, Zack. Please. I'll check your work later."

He sighed. Immediately, as though no time had passed between now and those days when he was her prize student at the Jeffersonian, he set to work.


	8. Chapter Seven

_Chapter Seven_

The kids weren't looking quite so relaxed when Booth came in their room the second time around. When he stood outside the door, he thought he heard a couple of them yelling, and there were no more comforting Wii sounds coming from inside. Before he was facing a scaled down version of Lord of the Flies, he went inside.

Sure enough, the kids were divided: Sam and Will versus everybody else.

"Hey, guys – see, I told you I'd be back. Everything okay?"

The boys were standing closest to the door, the others farther inside. One of the little girls was crying. Booth crouched down so he could look her in the eye.

"It's all right, honey – this whole thing's about wrapped up. How about we head downstairs for dinner? I'll have your folks meet us down there, okay?"

"Where's Tripp?" she asked, sniffling.

He squelched a grin. Most popular damned man on the block, no matter where they went – that was Tripp.

"He's downstairs. You guys have been really brave – I know that wasn't easy. What's say we head on down and see what Zoe's got for everybody?"

They all perked up at that. Booth took the little girl in his arms and led the troupe downstairs, feeling like the Pied Piper. Angela, Sweets, and Tripp were already in the dining room waiting for the kids, along with Dosha, who greeted them all like they were the best thing since Beggin' Strips. Zoe, who was growing in leaps and bounds in Booth's eyes, already had dinner on. Three tables had been pushed together, so they could all eat as a group until parents came down. Booth was hoping he had another few minutes before that happened, though.

Once everyone was seated, he came over and knelt beside Sam.

"You mind talking to me for a few minutes?" he asked softly.

The kid just stared at him, then swallowed hard, his eyes skating across the room. Checking the entrances. Looking for his father, Booth knew.

"It's okay – it won't take long. You can bring your food with you. We'll just eat in the kitchen."

It was a touchy situation, Booth knew. In the real world, rules dictated that he wouldn't even be allowed to have this conversation without somebody from protective services with Sam. He glanced at Sweets, who looked a little worse for the wear but had actually done pretty well, considering everything that had gone down that afternoon. The shrink picked up on what was happening without a word. He picked up his bowl of stew with a game smile.

"I'll meet you in there?" he asked Booth. Booth nodded, grateful for the help.

Sam was still on the fence, though. "If my dad comes…"

"I'm not gonna let anything happen to you or your brother," he said. His voice came out rougher than he'd intended. "We can keep the door open, so you can keep an eye on Will. Okay?"

The boy finally nodded. Booth carried his plate for him, Sam leading the way to the kitchen like he was headed for his execution.

* * *

><p>"How long ago did you lose your mom, Sam?" Booth asked, once he and Sweets and the kid had gotten set up at a counter in the kitchen. Zoe had cleared out for them, and Booth was true to his word by keeping the door into the dining room open, so Sam could keep an eye out for his little brother.<p>

"She died August fifth," he said. "She'd been sick – ever since before the clinic. But she never went to a doctor. Not even after your friend told her she had to."

Booth winced, remembering how serious Bones had been about the woman's injuries. He couldn't even imagine the pain she'd gone through, before she finally died.

"My Aunt Becky had us after that, but my dad got mad. He took us away from there. Said he was the only family we needed."

Sweets was listening to this in thoughtful silence, but Booth could tell the story was making an impression.

"Did you or your brother ever have a chance to talk to anyone, after your mother died?" Sweets asked.

Sam looked at him like he wasn't sure what he meant. "Like who? We don't go to school anymore – first we just lived in the van, and then Zoe said we could stay here. Dad doesn't like us to talk about Mom."

"That must be hard," Sweets said. "You and your brother must be very close."

"I'm all he's got. I'm the one who takes care of things," Sam said. He looked at Booth when he said it, his eyes too old and tired for any little boy's to be. Booth swallowed hard. "I'm the only one that'll make sure he makes it okay."

"When you came to see us at the clinic," Booth said, "you had a broken arm. You remember that? And your mom had a lot of bruises…"

Sam took special interest in his food all of a sudden, color climbing his cheeks. His face hardened.

"She fell a lot. So do I. It's got nothing to do with anybody."

"You don't need to be ashamed if someone is hurting you or your brother," Sweets said gently. "It's not your fault."

Booth didn't say anything to that. He knew the drill – he couldn't put the idea in Sam's head. There either had to be hard evidence, testimony from a third-party, or the kids had to come out and say it, if Booth had any hope of getting them away from their father.

"Nobody's hurting us," Sam said softly. "People start messing around in my dad's business, and it just makes things worse. Just let us alone. I can handle it."

Booth pushed his plate way and leaned in closer. Sam flinched, his body tensed. Waiting for a hard hand to set him straight, Booth knew.

"You remember what I told you before, Sam? When we met last summer? I was you, buddy – I've been there. You're what, ten years old?"

"Eleven," he said. He still wouldn't look Booth in the eye.

"It's not gonna get better, Sam," Booth said. He touched the boy's thin arm, and the kid finally looked him in the eye. "Believe me. My grandpops got us out – if he hadn't, somebody would've died. I guarantee it. Me or my dad, before I would've ever let him lay a hand on my little brother. That's what you've got to look forward to. And it doesn't matter how neat you keep the place, how quiet you guys are, how much you help out."

Sam's eyes swam. He brushed the tears away brutally.

"You've got a chance here," Booth said. "You've gotta talk to me, though. You say the word, and I'll make sure he never has a chance to hurt you or Will again."

Sam still didn't say anything.

"I know you love your dad, Sam," he said, quieter now. "I loved my dad, too. But just because he's your old man doesn't give him the right to hurt you. It didn't give him the right to hurt your mom."

A single tear fell down the boy's cheek, before he could brush it away. "What do you need me to do?" he asked, so soft Booth wasn't even positive he'd heard the words.

Sweets smiled gently. "You just have to tell the truth, Sam. That's all. You said you have an aunt?"

"My mom's sister. Becky. She lives near Portland – she came to get us, after mom…. They've got a house with a yard. Me and Will have our own bedrooms."

"Wait – so you actually lived there?" Sweets asked.

"Just for three days, but then Dad came to the house. They have a little girl. My dad said he'd hurt her, if my aunt tried to take us away again."

He told the rest of the story without another tear, his eyes on his soup bowl, his voice never breaking stride. Sweets caught Booth's eye, and he nodded. They had everything they needed – and if he could get an autopsy on the mother's body, they could probably get the son of a bitch for murder.

"Just one more question, buddy," Booth said. "What about the girl who's living with you guys now? How long has she been with you?"

"Dad met her at a bar a couple months ago. She didn't want to be with us, at first – she used to cry all the time. But now Dad just gives her her medicine, and she's okay."

It just got better and better. Sweets gave him the, 'That's enough' patented shrink look, and Booth was definitely in agreement. This was more than enough.

He stood by and watched as Sam rejoined Will at the table, already thinking through what needed to happen next. He pulled Zoe aside, and she confirmed that she'd gotten the all-clear from the constable on the island: there was a one-room jail cell with this dirt bag's name on it.

None of this did anything to help solve the shooting and the two perps running around on the island with a wounded – at best – victim and a bunch of old bones, Booth knew. But it would sure as hell make him sleep a lot better. He rounded up Tripp and waited 'til the island constable – a portly older man with a bushy grey beard and bushy grey eyebrows who definitely wasn't real thrilled at being called out by the Feds in the middle of a blizzard to round up someone who'd be facing murder charges before the week was out.

"Where is he?" the man asked.

Tripp nodded up the stairs. "Third floor."

"And the kids are safe?" he asked.

"The kids are in the dining room. There's a woman in the room with him, though."

"Any chance we're facing a hostage situation? That this might turn ugly?"

Booth had already considered this. "I think the best thing is to just catch him off guard. This is a guy who's been on the run for a while now, and he's got a long track record of threats he's not shy about making good on. If we call ahead, he'll know something's up. So, we just go in – grab him, get him locked up, and then get him back on the mainland, just as soon as the boats are running again tomorrow."

The constable eyed the stairwell. "Third floor, huh?"

Booth nodded. The old man sighed. "All right. Let's get this over with."

* * *

><p>Booth went up first. The other parents had already been reunited with their kids down in the dining room, which made Booth think that either Sam and Will's dad and his girl were holed up with a heavy dose of her "medicine," or the boy's father knew something was up. Booth just hoped to hell it was the first thing.<p>

Once they were up there, they stood off to either side of the door to make sure they couldn't be seen – or hit, if some kind of firefight ended up breaking out. There'd been a lot of debate about whether they should just knock, or go in strong. Booth didn't want to risk giving him a chance to take the girl, though, so he decided force was the safest way this time out. He was just grateful the boys were downstairs. He'd been there to see his old man hauled off too many times when things got ugly – it wasn't something any kid should have to go through.

The constable knocked on the door – which was so far from the plan that Booth could've strangled him. "Paul Lindley, this is Constable Mills. I'd like a word, if you don't mind."

Jesus.

There was a crash inside, followed by a short scream and a long string of curses. Booth shook his head. Shit. He practically pushed the constable out of the way, and kicked the door open. It cracked on its hinges, flying open to reveal an open window and Paul Lindley doing his damnedest to climb out. The girlfriend or wife or whatever she was, was screaming, buck naked except for a sheet around her waist. Booth followed her gaze to a glass pipe, cooker, and a blackened spoon on a little piano bench at the end of the bed.

Booth was already across the room before Lindley made it out the window. He snagged him by a ragged pant leg, and hauled him back inside.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" he asked. He pushed him toward the wall – maybe a little too rough, but he wasn't feeling real generous at the moment.

Once he was cornered with no chance of escape, Lindley went apeshit. He took a swing at Booth, screaming the whole time, while his girlfriend screamed even louder. Booth slammed him against the wall, pulling his arm at a right angle until the man finally stopped struggling.

"You really want to give me a reason?" he hissed into the man's ear. "Just give me a fuckin' reason to finish this." Rage boiled so close to the surface that all Booth could hear was a rushing in his ears and his own heartbeat. He was shaking with the effort of holding back.

"It's not what it looks like," Lindley said. He was crying now – weeping into the wallpaper, shaking. The constable handed Booth his cuffs, and he slapped them on and cinched them tight.

"What's not what it looks like, Pauly?" Booth asked. "You mean you're not sitting here cooking up a healthy dose of meth with an underage girl you have to drug to keep around, in a room you share with the boys you kidnapped from their aunt, after you beat their mother to death?" He pushed Lindley back against the wall, face first, Booth's body pinning him there. "Because I'm pretty sure it's exactly what it looks like."

Tripp cleared his throat. "Hey, Seel. Let's go."

Booth took a steadying breath, then another one. He spun Lindley around and propelled him forward, toward the door.

"Uh, Booth, you might want to take a look at this," Tripp said, standing behind him.

Booth turned around. It took him a few seconds to figure out what he was looking at. Holding it carefully by the end with a handkerchief, Tripp held up what looked like a pure silver, human leg bone.

* * *

><p>You would have thought that a shooting and a missing skeleton and bringing a good-for-nothing druggie of a father to justice would be enough excitement for their first day on Monhegan Island, but shortly after Paul Lindley was in custody and the boys were safely tucked away with Zoe for the night, Diggs turned up in the lobby looking like he'd been through… Well, a blizzard. Which he kind of had been, of course.<p>

"Has Erin been back here?" he asked, before he'd even gotten the door shut again.

They were back in the lobby, hanging out by the fireplace – the squint-squad going over the evidence they'd gathered, Booth pretending to pay attention, Dosha snoozing contentedly at their feet.

Angela looked at him in alarm. "We haven't seen her – we just figured you guys hooked up and were off doing your thing."

Diggs darkened a little at this, which made Booth wonder what, exactly, his and Erin's 'thing' might or might not be.

"I've been everywhere. She's gone. If she's on this island, I don't know where."

It was almost eight o'clock, the island pitch dark and the snow so thick that Booth couldn't see three feet out when he looked out the window.

"Why the hell didn't you tell us she was missing earlier?" he demanded.

By the look on Diggs' face, Booth was guessing he'd been asking himself the same question.

"Because she does this… It's kind of her thing. We spend a weekend in Boston, she disappears two hours in and doesn't show up again 'til midnight. We work on a story, she gets a lead and the next thing I know she's in Tijuana and three days have passed."

"But you don't think this is just Erin being, you know… Erin?" Angela asked, the apology clear in the way she asked the question.

"There's something up with her," Diggs said.

He came into the room soaking wet and peeled off his layers, stripping all the way down to a wife-beater and long johns. Every woman in the room was watching him like he was a long, cool drink of water after days in the dessert. Angela hoisted herself up from the couch and waddled over to him. Booth did a little mental eye roll.

"You mean, something more than usual?" she asked. "You know Erin better than anyone, but… I mean, she's not exactly the most forthcoming person on the planet."

"She is with me, though. She might not tell the rest of the world, but she's always told me. But something's going on with her. She's been sick, for one thing. She's lost weight, she keeps getting these mysterious phone calls. Michael's called me half a dozen times, trying to get in touch with her."

Booth looked at Angela for an explanation.

"Her husband."

He kind of blinked at that. That one, he hadn't seen coming.

"This isn't exactly the best weather for travel," Tripp said. "If she's not on the island, where do you think she went?"

Angela brought Diggs over to the sofa and sat him down. He shrugged like he had no clue, but there was a split-second of hesitation – just enough for Booth to think he wasn't getting the whole story. Diggs might not _know _where Erin was, but Booth thought he probably had a couple of ideas.

"So, what do you want us to do?" Booth asked. An edge of impatience made it into the question. If the guy wasn't gonna be straight with them, what the hell did he expect?

Diggs shook his head. Zoe brought a towel, a blanket, and a cup of hot cocoa. Booth had gotten the evil eye when he'd asked for an extra travel-sized shampoo in his room, but apparently Diggs merited special treatment. Angela wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and sat down beside him, her hand on his leg. Which, Booth noted, Hodgins definitely didn't take too kindly to.

He was silent for a minute or more as he sipped the cocoa and stared into the fireplace, apparently considering his next move. Finally, he sighed.

"I can try and reach a couple of contacts – see if I can get a boat," he said.

Booth did a double take. "I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a blizzard going on out there."

"Well, I can't just sit here," Diggs argued. He tapped his fingers impatiently on his knees. It took Booth a minute to figure out what he was doing. Typing. Angela put a hand over his to stop him.

"You still do that thing," she said, with an intimate little smile. Yeah, Hodgins was loving this.

He clasped his hands together and blew out a long breath. "Sorry – old habit. Okay, so… Anybody else have any brilliant ideas? I'm open to suggestions."

No one said a word. Diggs stood again. He was shivering visibly, his lips a little blue. Booth was guessing that if hypothermia hadn't already set it, it wouldn't take long if he went out again.

"I'm just gonna take one more look around the island, talk to some of the locals. Find out if anybody's seen her."

Booth shook his head. "Forget it – you're an ice cube. I'll take a look around. Dosha could use a walk, anyway – Erin's got that mangy little terrier with her, right? If Dosh gets a whiff of him, she'll let me know."

Bones looked up. "I'll go with you," she started. Booth shook his head. Before she could raise a stink, he nodded toward the stairs.

"I want you guys to go through Lindley's room, see if you can find the rest of that skeleton."

"But we already – " Bones started.

"I know," Booth agreed. "But that was just a quick once-over. Give it the royal treatment, see what you can come up with. Lindley's still sticking with the story that he found the thing in the hallway outside 2G, but I don't buy it – I need you guys to prove he's lying."

He could tell Bones didn't believe for a second that that was the reason he didn't want her coming with him, but he was grateful she didn't pursue it. No doubt he'd get an earful about it later, but at least he didn't have to fight her on it now.

Tripp looked at Cam with one of those sorry-as-hell-but-I'll-see-you-later smiles, and stood wearily.

"You need a second man?" he asked.

Booth nodded gratefully. "Always."

* * *

><p>It wasn't as cold as Booth had expected outside, and the wind had died down. He and Tripp split up with a promise to meet back at the inn in half an hour. A good foot of snow had fallen over the course of the afternoon; Booth was grateful Bones had gone overboard on the winter packing before they left. He took to the streets in ski pants and waterproof boots, thoroughly windproofed from head to foot. Dosha loped on ahead with her tail wagging, and the fresh snow and fresh air and silence gradually worked their magic as Booth trudged along the vague remnants of a road, on down toward the pier.<p>

He wasn't sure he'd ever heard such complete silence before. He passed a little white church and a couple of galleries, a one-room schoolhouse and another inn. Nobody was out. It looked like nobody was in, either. Bones had told him there were only forty-eight year-round residents on the island, and it seemed to him that a good portion of them lived in the Monhegan House. Booth was guessing that the rest of them were probably happily hidden behind closed doors on a night like tonight.

He was almost to the pier when Dosha's head came up. She gave a couple low woofs, then a louder, sharper bark. Her tail was wagging like crazy – Booth had learned over the past two months that that either meant food, another dog, or Parker. And since Parker definitely wasn't here, and there probably wasn't a lot of food available at the moment, he was hoping it was Einstein.

"Erin!" he called. The name got lost on the wind. Dosha rushed on ahead. About ten feet from the dock, Booth could make out a boat at the landing, and two people talking beside it. Dosha raced over to them, and Erin's white terrier greeted her with a happy little bark and did a few laps around the collie. Booth watched as Erin – buried in layers of winter gear, a large backpack on her back – looked around, clearly startled. The man she was with shouted something Booth couldn't hear, and before Booth could get any closer, he'd climbed back into his fishing boat, revved the engine, and headed back out into the open ocean.

Booth hurried down to meet her.

"What the hell was that about?" he asked. "Do you have any idea how long Diggs has been looking for you? You scared the hell out of everyone."

He fell silent when he got closer, and saw the look on her face. She'd gone as white as the snow around them, her green eyes clouded over for a second. She swayed where she stood. Booth took the backpack from her, holding onto her arm while she recovered.

"Hey – Erin." He looked her in the eye, trying to figure out if maybe she was on something. She looked away.

"I have to – excuse me," she mumbled. She made a mad dash for a spot behind a bunch of ropes and gear, on the other side of the landing. Booth stood by while she lost what looked like hadn't been much lunch in the first place. He winced.

A good ten minutes passed while she knelt in the snow heaving. Booth set her pack down and picked up a chunk of clean snow. When she'd stopped, she sat down with her back against a stack of pilings with her eyes closed, breathing hard. Booth crouched beside her and handed her the snow. Her left hand rested low on her stomach, in a gesture he found familiar but hadn't placed yet.

"You okay?" he asked.

She took the snow and wiped her mouth with it, then bit off a chunk and swished it around in her mouth before spitting it out. She actually managed a ghost of a smile. "Oh, yeah. Never better," she said, her words faint. "You?"

He laughed, just a little. "I'm great – but then, nobody's been looking for me for the past four hours. You need a hand up?"

"Just give me a second." She seemed embarrassed for having to ask. "Sorry. You can go on ahead if you want. I'll be there soon."

The position of her hand suddenly clicked: Angela. And, years ago, Rebecca. That's where he'd seen that before.

"Yeah, 'cause I make a habit of leaving pregnant women to freeze to death in the snow. No offense, but I'll just hang out here a while longer."

Her head snapped up, her eyes locking on his. For just a second, he thought she might cry. That look passed fast, though.

"You can't tell anyone."

"So I guess you haven't told your friend, then," Booth said.

"I haven't even told my husband." She looked away, staring at something far off out to sea. Booth guessed she wasn't much more than thirty, but suddenly she looked a lot younger.

"How far along are you?"

She rested her hand on her stomach again. The dogs came back, and Einstein immediately came over and butted his head against her chest, his tail wagging. She buried her head in his fur, wrapping her arms around him, before she turned her head to the side to look at Booth.

"Three months," she said. He hadn't even been sure she'd answer. "The second trimester's supposed to be easier. That's what I've heard."

Booth stood. "That's what they say."

"You have kids?"

"A boy. He's nine."

He waited for her to say something more, but she just nodded. She closed her eyes. Booth was starting to get worried. He glanced at his watch – he was supposed to have met Tripp five minutes ago.

"Do you want me to call Diggs?" he asked.

She shook her head quickly. "Nah – I'm fine. You won't get any cell reception out here anyway. I'm better now – we can go."

She held out her hand for a lift up. Booth was surprised at how light she was. Once she was up, she took her hand back fast. He had the feeling she wasn't the kind of woman who'd ever learned to lean on other people. It made him think of Bones, when they'd first met. Whether she was used to it or not, the way she swayed once she was on her feet again made it clear that she'd need to lean on someone tonight, or she wasn't getting back to the inn.

"Take my arm."

"I told you, I'm fine," she said, her voice tight. "I've got it." She struggled with the backpack he'd left lying in the snow. Booth just rolled his eyes. Jesus. Even Bones wasn't this bad.

He took the pack and hefted it back onto his back, surprised at the weight. It wasn't bad for him, but it sure as hell was more than a woman her size should be lugging around in a blizzard when she was three months' pregnant.

"Listen, Solomon, you can either take my arm or I can carry you. Your choice."

He looked down at her. The wind whipped her red hair in all directions, a little color creeping back into her face. She chewed on her bottom lip before she finally nodded. She took his arm and leaned into him while they made the trek back up the hill in silence.


	9. Chapter Eight

_Chapter Eight_

That night, after crime scenes had been taped off and witnesses had been questioned and everybody had been locked up tight in their rooms, Booth sat on the edge of the bed in his haunted friggin' bedroom. The wind was howling outside the window, but otherwise the place was quiet. A gas lantern flickered on the nightstand. The crappy fire he'd started in the fireplace was only lukewarm – he couldn't seem to get the thing to go beyond a quick burst of flame and a few embers.

Booth was in his sweats and T-shirt. Alone. Bones had gone to bed in her room an hour earlier. She seemed to be taking this whole "No fraternization during a case" thing a little too seriously for his taste. He'd managed to score one long kiss outside her bedroom door, and then she'd said she would see him in the morning.

Damn Bones and her stupid rules.

The dying fire he'd been sweating over for the past half-hour suddenly came to life, accompanied by a single, loud pop like a gunshot, and a shower of sparks. Booth just about jumped out of his skin.

Once it had died down again, he grudgingly got under his covers and grabbed the book he'd been half-heartedly reading for about a month and a half. The thing was, he hadn't had a chance to really talk to Bones all day – they'd been too busy. It felt weird, not talking to her – like he couldn't really tell how he felt about the case or the people around him or the world in general, until he talked it all over with Bones.

Which was just a little pathetic, he knew.

He sighed, and looked longingly at the door. This was their rule though, right? They were on a case.

He lay down with his book and tried to get into the story. It wasn't as good as Bones's stuff, that was for damned sure. He'd only been reading for about a minute when the gas lantern went out.

A shiver went straight up his spine.

Angela's eyes had gotten huge when he'd told her which room he was staying in.

_Wow – you must have made a really bad first impression on Zoe. She gave you Ellie's room?_

Ellie.

Booth took a couple of deep breaths. The room was inky black – he couldn't seen an inch in front of him. The fire had gone out again; the room was cold. Booth shivered under his blankets.

Friggin' no fraternization rule.

Friggin' haunted rooms.

He'd tried to call Bones's cell earlier, but couldn't get a signal inside the hotel. Then, he'd tried the phone in his room, but the line was dead.

He sank down further in the bed, and pulled the blankets up to his chin.

The lantern sparked back to life at exactly the same time the fire in the fireplace did, in another shower of sparks. Booth could have sworn he saw a shadow dart across the room at the sudden light.

His heart hammered against his ribs.

Ellie, according to Angela, was a little girl who'd been murdered by her father in this very room, like ninety years ago.

He stared at the lantern, now burning bright.

A gust of wind hit the side of the inn, hard enough that the whole place groaned. Booth thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye, over by the window. He was tempted to pull the blankets up over his head.

He turned slowly, every hair on the back of his neck standing up.

There was nothing there, though – no creepy faces, no bloody footsteps or ghostly figures. The lantern flickered a little lower. He forced himself to breathe. And then, the fire went out again – like someone had thrown a blanket over it or something.

The lantern flared bright, and then went out completely.

The phone rang.

Booth's heart rate kicked up another notch. How many shitty things had he survived over the years? And now, just when things were getting good, he was gonna die of a heart attack in a friggin' haunted hotel.

He picked up the ringing phone.

There was no one there. No dial tone. Nothing.

He swallowed hard and set it down again.

"Okay," he whispered. "How about if I just go? Would that make you happy?"

And now he was talking to ghosts.

The phone rang again, the lantern burning brighter at exactly the same time. Booth was on his feet and out the door in two seconds flat.

Never let it be said that Seeley Booth couldn't take a hint.

* * *

><p>It took Bones a few seconds to open her door after Booth knocked, his heart still pounding a little too hard.<p>

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah, of course," he said, too fast. Bones's non-haunted fireplace was going gangbusters. Dosha lay snoozing on her dog bed. She opened one eye and thumped her tail to show that she'd noticed he was there, but she clearly didn't care enough to get up and say hello.

"I just figured I'd check on you," Booth continued. We didn't really get much time to talk today."

"That's true. But I thought we were supposed to act professionally while we're on a case. Particularly when we're in the field with everyone else."

"I don't know if you've noticed, Bones, but everybody else is shacked up gettin' it on right now. Hef's place has seen less action than this place is right about now."

If she didn't know what Hef's place was, she didn't mention it. Instead, she just gave him a little smile that, he knew, meant he was about to win this particular argument.

"Our cases do seem to run more smoothly when we have an opportunity to confer," she said.

"That's all I'm saying, Bones."

She sat down on the bed and patted a spot by her side. She was wearing one of his T-shirts and a pair of blue pajama bottoms that were a little too big. Booth sat down beside her.

"I _was _interested in finding out how everything went with the boys – Sam and Will." She pulled her legs up, resting her elbows on her knees. Booth felt himself start to relax. He realized, suddenly, just how much he'd been looking forward to talking to her.

He lay down beside her, his hand tracing the lines of her ankle while he thought about her question.

"I think it went okay," he said, finally. She looked him in the eye, studying him, and the firelight in the room cast her face in soft shadows.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "I know how hard it was when you first met them."

He thought of that day so many months ago – of that week, when everything with Bones had finally come to a head. He nodded.

"Yeah, it was hard," he admitted. "I just wish I'd done something sooner. I mean, the best I could do for the kid was give him a few fucking phone numbers? I knew what he was going back to better than anybody – I should have at least followed up."

"We barely had time to get our breath after the course before I was on a plane to Oregon," she reminded him. She stretched out beside him, her hand on his side. She'd just taken a shower – he could smell her shampoo, her hair still a little damp. He put his arms around her and snuggled close, burying his nose in her neck.

"I guess so. It still sucks, though."

"It seems as though things could get better now. They're safe, at least."

He nodded. "Hey, what did you find out about Erin today? Did you guys get a chance to talk, while you and Angela were looking around?"

"She left almost immediately after we started – she doesn't seem terribly friendly. Angela says she has _issues_."

Booth thought of the woman's startling green eyes, how frail she'd seemed. He hesitated. "Did you know she's pregnant?"

Bones looked at him, genuinely surprised. "She must not be very far along – I didn't see any of the signs."

"She says three months."

Her eyes widened. "Really?"

"You don't believe her?" Booth asked.

"It's not that I don't believe her. I just… I'll have to pay closer attention tomorrow."

They were quiet for a few seconds. Bones ran her hand under his sweatshirt, skating across his abs and then circling around to his back. He closed his eyes at her touch.

"Do you think Diggs is the father?" he asked.

She stopped moving, and pulled back. She studied him for a second or two.

"What?" He felt himself blushing.

"You just seem very interested in this woman," she said.

"No, I'm not," he said quickly. "I mean, you know – I was just curious."

Bones thought about this for a second or two. "Angela says Diggs used to be Erin's editor at the local paper, when she was still in high school. Apparently, it was quite scandalous."

"So they had an affair?"

"Angela says they always denied it, but she knows they were together later. And then Erin married her college professor."

"And that's the guy she's married to now?"

"Apparently, she likes older men." If she meant anything by the comment, Booth couldn't quite tell.

"Well, you dated your college professor, right?" he asked. He was immediately sorry he did, though, since it conjured memories of that smarmy GQ guy who treated Bones like shit.

"I did – but Michael wasn't twenty-two years older than me."

He whistled softly. "Wow. Can you say 'Daddy issues'?"

"Her father killed himself," Bones said quietly. Her hands had circled around, and were resting on his chest now. He realized she was watching him closely.

Booth pushed the image of Erin Solomon's green eyes far away, and focused on the blue eyes looking into his own.

"That's too bad," he said. "I think she's probably had a pretty hard road."

Bones nodded, still watching him. "You like her, don't you?"

"What?" His attempt at innocence failed. She just looked at him, seeing right through his act. He sighed, and pulled her closer.

"Not like that, Bones. I don't like anybody but you like _that. _But I do feel bad for her. And I have a feeling she's gotten herself into something that's a little over her head."

She didn't say anything to that. Booth tucked her hair behind her ear and looked into her eyes.

"Why, Bones? Whatsamatter - jealous."

"I don't get jealous."

He grinned. "Uh huh. Sure you don't." He rolled over and turned off the gas lamp by the nightstand. Bones cuddled in closer, her breath warm at his ear.

"Are you staying here tonight?"

"You mind?"

She pretended to think about it. Booth moved in and nipped her earlobe, careful not to go too fast. Waiting for her to tense or push him away. Instead, she draped her leg over his, pulling him closer.

"You'll have to pay a nominal fee," she said, her voice a little husky. "It _is _my room, after all."

The words ran through him like an electric current. "Oh yeah? What'd you have in mind?"

He found the hem of her sweatshirt and ran his knuckles over her stomach, moving up to cup her breasts gently. Bones pulled the shirt up over her head, and lay back down. He took a second to take her in, lit by the glow of the fire. She was the most feminine woman he'd ever known – all curves and lush grace, soft in all the places a woman should be soft. Her eyes sank shut when his mouth closed around her breast, his teeth grazing the nipple.

"That's a good place to start," she breathed. Her hips came up off the bed when his hand moved lower. He pushed past the waistband of her pj bottoms, trailing a finger along the seam of her underwear. She was practically writhing now, and he was hard as a rock – but still waiting, always waiting, for any sign that he should stop.

She yanked on his shirt until he got the hint and pulled it up over his head. They locked eyes for a second before his hand slid down, pushing her panties aside, and she closed her eyes when his fingers found her, warm and wet. He slipped a finger inside, pressing deeper until she bit her lip, her hips moving with his hand. She opened her eyes a second later, and looked at him with an uncharacteristic trace of uncertainty.

"What?" he asked, quiet. He stopped moving, but kept his hand where it was. "Are you okay? I can stop."

She hesitated. "Will you…" She licked her lips, her gaze drifting down. "I know I haven't wanted oral…" she trailed off.

"Are you sure?" Bones hadn't let him go down on her since all the talk about the rape had started – she said it made her feel too out of control, too vulnerable. He'd been understanding, of course - he would've been a real jerk not to be. But the truth was, he'd missed it like hell.

She nodded. "I think so."

They kissed, starting out slow and sweet, until gradually the passion started to spiral. "Tell me if you want me to stop," he whispered, before he began kissing his way down her body.

He inched her pj bottoms down her legs, her underwear with them, taking his time. Once she was naked, he pulled the covers up over both of them and began kissing his way up a mile-and-a-half of smooth, creamy white thigh. Bones's hands were on his shoulders, her hips moving gently under his touch. When his mouth finally found her, sweet and dripping, she went still for a few seconds.

He waited.

"Don't stop," he finally heard her whisper.

He moved deeper, feasting like a man who'd been denied too long. When she came, his name on her lips, her fingers twisted in his hair, he rode the wave with her and savored the burst of sweetness, thinking of how drunk he could get from the smell, the taste, the feel of her.

He kissed his way back up her body, and lay down beside her. Her cheeks were wet. The tears weren't unusual to him anymore, but he still hated that sex was this heavy now – that it always took this much out of her, emotionally. He kissed her cheeks. She smiled at him – glowed, just a little.

"That was nice," she said quietly.

"Just nice? I'm gonna have to work on my technique."

She kissed him, hard and deep, pushing his sweats down while she pulled him closer.

"We don't have to…" he started.

She just grinned at him, and a second later her hand closed around his cock. Booth's eyes sank shut.

"Are you _sure _we don't have to?" she whispered, with a little gleam in her eye.

She pushed him onto his back.

There was something different about making love to her that night, Booth thought later – something new, and at the same time something that felt the way it used to be between them. It was easy again, he realized – even the tears. The soft words afterward, the whispered laughter, the conversation that went late into the night.

"We should go to sleep," she whispered to him an hour later, when she was in his arms and they were still going over their day, talking about what they'd done, what they wanted to do, what the future held.

"Yeah, you're right." He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. "Thanks, Bones," he said softly.

"For what?" Her breath was warm on his neck, her arms soft around his middle.

"For saving me from ghosts. And myself. For teaching me about femurs and spatter patterns." He kissed her neck. Everything felt so quiet, suddenly. It was one of those moments he gladly would've spent another five years inside. "For falling in love with me."

She pulled back and looked him in the eye – studying him again. Brushed his hair back and ran her hand along his cheek, in that way he loved.

"I do love you," she whispered. It wasn't an intense 'I love you' – not one dripping with tears or tragedy. It was the kind of 'I love you' he liked best: the 'I love you' she gave with a smile and sparking eyes, like he was the best thing since sliced bread.

All of a sudden, Booth thought maybe Ellie wasn't such a terrible ghost after all.

* * *

><p>Hours later, Booth woke in the bed alone, disoriented. It took him a split second to figure out what had gotten him up.<p>

A scream.

Bones was already at the door with Dosha beside her.

"What is it?" he asked. He fumbled for his gun and his sweats, trying to decide which one was more important.

She shook her head. "I don't know. It came from down the hall."

Padding feet ran down the hallway. Booth got himself together and went to the door.

"Stay here."

She just gave him the village idiot look again, and he grimaced.

"Well, then – stay behind me. And keep the dog back."

Booth crept down the long, dark hallway with his gun drawn, Bones and Dosha two steps behind. Cam and Tripp were standing at an open door at the end of the hallway. Zack's room, Booth remembered. They backed away from when Booth got there, giving him room to get through. He was still half-asleep, and so were Cam and Tripp - he couldn't read their expressions. Once he saw what they were looking at, he understood why.

Set up at the far side of the room, in the way that he'd memorized from a case he would just as soon forget, was a Gormogon skeleton, firelight reflecting off silver and bone.

Strangely enough, though, that wasn't the thing that made Booth's head reel.

Because on the other side of the room, huddled there with the blankets pulled up to his chest, was Zack. And beside him, her own blanket sliding down just a little too low for comfort, was one of the hottest blonde bombshells Booth had ever seen.

Zack pulled the blanket up a little higher.

"I don't know where that came from," he said, his voice cracking on the words.

Booth's eyes skated to the woman in the bed beside him. Zack blinked a couple of times, like he was trying to figure out how to slip back into the real world after a lifetime outside it.

"Um - Agent Booth, this is Greta Garbo." He swallowed hard. "My girlfriend."


	10. Chapter Nine

_Chapter Nine_

Greta Garbo was what Brennan had heard termed "platinum" blonde, her hair cut in a short, attractive – though admittedly mussed – bob. Based on the fact that Booth and Tripp were both rendered speechless at sight of the woman's ample cleavage, it was clear that she was considered very good looking.

"Zack, what the hell is going on?" Brennan demanded.

He looked confused himself. "I was asleep – we were just sleeping. But then I woke up because I heard a noise, and that was just… There."

"And he woke me up," Greta said, a faint southern accent detectable. Her voice was still rough – Brennan assumed from having just woken. "And I saw it… And I screamed." She turned to Zack. "I've dreamed of seeing a real, live Gormogon skeleton my whole life – I never thought I would scream."

"It _was _quite startling," Zack said. "I almost screamed myself."

Greta smiled at that. Based on the way she was looking at Zack, Brennan got the unpleasant sense that she might be about to engage in some type of physical display of affection. Zack, however, still looked quite uncomfortable.

"Well, where the hell did it come from?" Booth demanded.

"And where the hell did _she _come from?" Cam added.

Angela and Hodgins arrived on the scene a moment later, Angela looking particularly out of sorts.

"What the hell is going – whoa," Angela stopped, her eyes growing wider at the sight that awaited her inside the room. She looked at Brennan. "Did you know Zack has a girl in his bed?"

"Right now I'm not worried about the girl," Booth said. "Though we're gonna deal with that, too. First, I want to know how the skeleton we've been looking for for the past day winds up in your room, looking like it's been here all along."

Brennan left them to their conversation, and went to the Gormogon sculpture to examine it more closely.

"I don't know how the skeleton got into my room," Zack said.

The sculpture was positioned in exactly the same way the previous Gormogon skeletons had seen – the arms stretched unnaturally over the head, the entire skeleton twisted at an angle around the C4 and C5 vertebra.

In the background, she heard Zack continue. "I'd be happy to go over the entire scenario with you, however. If you could just…"

Brennan looked intently at the skeleton, trying to recall precisely what the photographs Diggs had sent of the sculpture had looked like. There was something different here.

"Hey, Bones," Booth came up beside her, snapping his fingers. "We're gonna give Romeo and Juliet here a chance to get some pants on, all right? Now come on – let's leave 'em to it."

"Look at the left metatarsals on this," Brennan said.

She was pleased to note that Booth hesitated only a moment before he gazed down at the foot.

"Yeah, Bones – great. Toes. I'll be sure to call a press conference. Now, can we get outta here? Because I personally am not interested in whatever Zack's hiding under those blankets."

"They were silver in the photo that Diggs provided. As were the right femur and the left tibia."

It took only a moment more before he realized the significance of what she was saying.

"So, you're saying somebody's added new bones to this thing since they found it in the basement a week ago?"

"Or at least since Diggs took the photographs and sent them to Angela."

Booth sighed.

"Excuse me," Zack said, still seated uncomfortably on the bed with the blankets pulled up to his chest. "If you could just give us a moment..."

Brennan noted that Greta's sheet had drifted somewhat from its original placement, revealing much more than Brennan, for one, was comfortable seeing.

"Let 'em stay," Greta said. "I'm not shy."

She gathered the sheet haphazardly around herself, exposing a significant amount of breast and thigh, and marched to the bathroom. She draped herself at the doorway, the sheet slipping incrementally down her body. Brennan noted that Hodgins and Zack were both mesmerized by the show, while Booth and Tripp were clearly affected, but markedly better at disguising their interest.

"C'mon, Zacky… If you hurry, I might just have something in here for you," the woman practically purred.

Zack started to get up, but Cam motioned him down with an authoritative glare.

"Down, boy. Greta, why don't you just go get dressed. Alone. Quickly." Greta didn't move. Her lower lip came out in an unmistakable pout. Cam narrowed her eyes. "Now."

Clearly disgruntled, the woman dropped her sheet in the doorway and closed the door – though not before she'd given everyone in the room an unimpeded glimpse of her assets.

"Whoa," Hodgins said.

Zack smiled smugly. "I told you she was real."

"Yeah, but you never said she was… Wow."

"Well, if you won't be needing me, I'm going back to bed," Angela said abruptly. She brushed past Hodgins, nearly knocking him over in the process. "I need sleep, since I'm still a human incubator for _your _spawn for the next two months." She glared at him for just a moment before she stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Booth went over and slapped Hodgins on the back of the head. "Nice move, genius."

"_Ow - _What? She's totally cool about me checking out other women – we've had this talk before."

"I'm guessing that was before you got her pregnant, moved in together, and exchanged vows?" Tripp interjected.

Jack's face fell. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Booth said with a terse nod. "I'm thinking you'll be bunking with Zack here by nightfall."

"What?" Zack looked alarmed, for the first time coming out of his stupor since Greta had dropped her sheet in front of the entire room moments before. "He can't share a room with me. I'm – "

"- in the custody of the Federal government," Booth finished for him. "And we have a strict policy against springing prisoners so they can shack up with their girlfriends and get it on. It's in the rule book."

"It is?" Brennan asked. By the look on Booth's face, she was guessing he hadn't meant that literally.

She glanced at an antique clock on the wall. It was just past four a.m. Clearly, they wouldn't be getting anymore sleep tonight. Greta came out a moment later, wearing only a sheer dressing gown that left virtually nothing to the imagination. Tripp began to cough so hard he became quite flushed, and Cam slapped him on the back with what Brennan felt was excessive force.

"Hey, here's an idea, babe," the pathologist said, drawing the term of endearment out with saccharine sweetness. "How about you go back to bed, and we'll finish up here?"

"Great idea," he said, his voice still not quite at full strength. "I'll just…" His eyes drifted back to Greta for just an instant, and he shook his head as though clearing it. "Yeah. Let me know if you need anything."

He hurried out of the room, with Hodgins close on his heels. Which left Zack, Greta, Booth, Brennan, and Cam. Zack excused himself to get dressed. Booth had become unusually interested in the skeleton by this time. Brennan watched as he stood staring at it with a level of concentration she had rarely seen from him.

"Aren't you going to be cold?" Cam asked Greta coolly.

"I tend to run hot most of the time," Greta said. She maneuvered herself back into Booth's line of vision. "You know how that is, I bet."

Though she had been up for some time now, Greta's voice retained that husky quality Brennan had detected earlier. She wondered if the woman might be suffering from Reinke's edema. Whatever the cause, it was clear that it – among other things – was having an effect on Booth.

Cam grabbed a flannel bathrobe that must have been Zack's, and pushed it toward Greta.

"Here – put this on." Her tone did not invite argument.

Zack came out a moment later, fully dressed in jeans and a sweater, his hair standing on end and his feet bare. With Greta now more appropriately clothed as well, the two of them sat on the bed, while Booth paced the room for a few moments before he spoke. When he did, it was clear that he didn't view these latest developments with a great deal of amusement.

"What the hell happened?" he finally began, directing the question at Zack. "Has she been here the whole time?"

"She stowed away in the boat – I didn't realize until we were already here. She's very interested in Gormogon. I think she'll be a real asset to the case."

"So, you got here and she was just… What, waiting for you in your room?"

"I just waited until everyone had checked in, and then I found out which room Zack was in. I wanted it to be a surprise."

"Which it was," Zack said quickly. A very _good _surprise."

Brennan looked at him more closely. He appeared disheveled, but at first she had attributed that to the circumstances and his usual state. Now, she took a step closer, indicating that he move to the end of the bed.

"Did you take something last night?"

"Of course not. I came back to my room directly after we were finished with dinner. Booth told me not to leave my room, so I didn't. Greta joined me, and we had – "

"Yeah, Zack, we know what you had," Booth interrupted. "You can skip that part."

"She asked me," he said with a trace of indignance. "I was merely trying to answer the question as accurately as possible." He paused, reorganizing his thoughts. "Then there was a knock on our door, at just a little past eight o'clock. Greta hid. There was a plate of cookies and a glass of milk, which I – " he stopped, comprehension dawning. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh,'" Booth said. "And no clue where this milk and cookies came from?"

"I just assumed it was a gift from hotel management. Something they did."

"Yeah, 'cause that wouldn't be weird at all," Booth said dryly.

Brennan bent closer, studying Zack's eyes. All but a tiny ring of iris was visible around shining black pupils.

"Did you have some of the milk and cookies, as well?" she asked Greta.

"Zack shared them with me. He's very generous."

Cam checked the woman's eyes. "You could drive a freight train through these pupils."

"What happened after the cookies?" Booth pressed. "Did you remember to lock your door again?"

"Yes," Zack said, without hesitation. "Greta reminded me specifically, because she wanted to – "

Again, Booth held up his hand. "Got it."

"And did you?" Brennan asked.

Zack looked confused. "Did I…?"

"I assume you were about to say that you and Ms. Garbo were going to have intercourse again. _After _the milk and cookies."

"Oh," Zack said. He looked embarrassed, but only for a moment before he grasped the implication of the question. "No – we didn't. We were both too sleepy." He looked at Greta. "I didn't think anything of it at the time, but that has definitely never happened before."

"This is what the stuff came in?" Booth asked, indicating a glass and an empty plate on the bedside table.

"Yes – that's it," Zack said.

"We'll want to bag that," he said to Brennan. "Maybe Hodgins will know how to get fingerprints off it or something."

"I have a kit with me," Cam said. "We'll have to fingerprint everyone in the hotel, but based on the weather forecast, I'm not thinking we'll have anything better to do for the next twenty-four hours."

"Are you kiddin' me?" Booth asked. "There's no way in hell we're staying here another twenty-four hours."

Greta smiled at him winningly. Brennan wasn't certain how or when she'd done it, exactly, but her flannel robe had definitely slid quite far down her body.

"Oh, come on, handsome," the woman said, her voice a breathy whisper. "I'm sure we'll find a way to keep you entertained."

Instead of becoming apoplectic as the other men in the room had done, however, Booth simply rolled his eyes.

"Oh, yeah. This is gonna be great."

The snow had continued in earnest over the course of the night; in the morning hours, the precipitation changed to sleet and freezing rain. It was hardly the improvement in conditions they had all been hoping for. Cam had been right – there was no way anyone would be getting off the island in the next twenty-four hours.

Booth, Brennan, and Cam determined that the surest course of action to keep the Gormogon skeleton safe from another theft attempt was to keep it in Zack's room. Zack and Greta were each reassigned new rooms, though Brennan doubted their ability to keep the two separate. Booth then set up a 'round-the-clock watch to ensure that someone was constantly on vigil to guard the skeleton.

Booth took the first shift, while everyone else went down for an early breakfast. Though not yet six a.m., almost everyone in their party was gathered once more at a large table in the dining room, a buffet-style breakfast waiting for them. Based on outward appearances, Brennan was guessing that no one had had a terribly good night's sleep.

"So, Greta," Angela began, when conversation about the discovery of the skeleton had temporarily abated, "How is it that you and Zack here met, exactly?"

Greta had showered and changed – now, she wore a white cashmere sweater at least two sizes too small, with tight jeans and thigh high boots. Brennan wasn't certain how oxygenated blood could possibly reach her extremities in such an outfit.

"I was in the Institution one day," she said, "And I heard somebody talking about Zack."

"You were in the Institution as a – um," Tripp hesitated. "As a patient, you mean?"

"Greta checks herself in periodically," Zack interrupted. "She has anxiety issues."

"But if you were in there voluntarily," Cam interrupted, "wouldn't that mean you were in a different part of the hospital than Zack?"

"Locked doors have never been much trouble for me. I have a way of getting what I want, when I want it." the woman said. She smiled, tilting her head slightly as she directed her gaze at Tripp. "Would you be a doll and get me some more coffee? I just can't seem to get my head on straight – it must be whatever they slipped us last night."

Tripp looked at Cam guiltily. "Oh for crying out loud, just do it," she said, when she realized he seemed to be waiting for some type of permission.

He reluctantly took Greta's coffee mug from her, taking unnecessary care not to touch any part of her body, and went to get the refill she had requested.

"So, you're the brilliant Jack Hodgins," Greta said, directing her gaze at Hodgins the moment that Tripp had walked away.

Hodgins seemed to be doing everything in his power to refrain from looking at Greta ever since the incident that morning when Angela had stalked off.

"Yep, I guess so," he said, keeping his eyes on his plate. "Hey, does anybody else want coffee? We should get a pot. Hang on – I'll make some."

He stood so abruptly he nearly toppled his chair, hurrying off in Tripp's wake.

"The men around here don't stand still much, do they?" Greta asked. "What about you, Diggs?" she said, in that low purr that Brennan was beginning to despise. "Isn't there somewhere you need to – "

"Okay, you know what?" Angela interrupted loudly, abruptly breaking whatever spell Greta seemed to be casting. "Honey, I don't care if you are a knockout with double Ds threatening to explode out of that sweater any second now – if you don't give the Monroe whisper and the doe eyes a rest, somebody's gonna leave this table with a limp. I've got swollen ankles and hemorrhoids and seven months' worth of pregnancy hormones stored up, and I promise you, there's not a jury in the world that would convict me if I drowned you before the day was out."

The table went silent. For a moment, Brennan thought Greta would throw some kind of scene. Instead, after the initial shock had worn off, she smiled innocently.

"I'm sorry if I've offended you," she said, with the same husky whisper Angela had just threatened. The woman turned to Zack. "I told you, baby – women just never seem to like me."

The tension continued unabated until Diggs cleared his throat. Like Booth, he seemed relatively unaffected by the woman.

"So, any ideas on who left this thing?"

"We'll be setting up an interrogation room in the hotel after breakfast," Brennan informed him. "Cam will try to lift fingerprints from the glass and the plate left behind in Zack's room, and then we'll fingerprint all of the hotel guests."

"Let me know if there's any way I can help out."

"Hey, where's Erin this morning?" Angela asked. "She used to be the first one out of bed, ready to take on the world."

He shrugged, his tone cooling perceptibly. "Yeah, well – people change, I guess."

Tripp returned then, and the rest of the table resumed their own discussions. Once the attention was no longer focused in their direction, Angela lowered her voice, including just Diggs, Brennan, and herself in the conversation.

"So, she's still being weird?" she asked, clearly still referring to Erin.

Brennan thought of everything Booth had told her the night before. He'd been adamant that she not say anything about the pregnancy, which Brennan respected. However, it did seem as though someone besides Booth should know that the woman wasn't merely being difficult.

"Perhaps she's not feeling well," she said.

Diggs looked at her. "Did she say something to your partner last night?"

"No," Brennan said. "I mean – she may have, I don't know. But if she wasn't feeling well, perhaps it would be better to be a bit more forgiving than you might be otherwise. If she wasn't feeling well." She hesitated. "Which, if it were the case, I would have no way of knowing."

Angela gave her a quick look, but thankfully did not pursue the issue.

"Well, don't ask me," she said, redirecting her attention to Diggs. "You're Erin's BFF, right? So, it makes sense that, whatever the two of you are, you might want to be there in case she does need somebody." She glanced at Brennan. "Which I'm guessing isn't out of the realm of possibility."

"Yeah. Point taken," Diggs said, looking somewhat chastened. He glanced around the table as if the answer to his dilemma might magically reveal itself. "All right. So, I guess I'll just go up there again. We'll go through the same old routine – I'll ask if she's okay, she'll say she's fine. I'll press for details, she'll get pissy. We'll call a truce and talk about the story. 'Cause that's what we do."

He stood with a heavy sigh. "And, here I go."

As soon as he'd left the room, Angela leaned in closer to Brennan. "Okay, what the hell happened between Erin and Booth last night?"

Brennan looked at her blankly. "He found her and brought her back to the hotel."

"Un unh – No way is that the whole story. Something happened – I could tell when I talked to Erin before bed last night. Don't get me wrong – I love her, right? I mean… In an 'I haven't talked to you in fifteen years, but we had some great times together as kids' kind of a way, but still… I love her. But something's going on with her. Her creepy husband, the vibe between her and Diggs, the bizarre disappearance, then some mysterious heart-to-heart with Booth in the middle of a blizzard… Sweetie, something is clearly up."

Brennan hesitated. The moment she did, she knew Angela would be able to tell that she was hiding something – she always could.

"You know, don't you?"

"No."

"You do, too! Bren." She leaned in even closer, whispering seriously. "Sweetie, you can_not_ hold out on me – it's not what we do. These are two of my oldest friends. There's no way you should know dirt that I don't."

Brennan looked around the table, but everyone else did indeed still seem deeply engaged in their own conversations.

"You can't tell anyone. And you especially can't tell Booth that I told you."

Angela crossed her heart and pantomimed locking her lips. "I'm a vault. I swear."

Brennan took a deep breath, and lowered her voice even further. "She's pregnant."

Angela's eyes widened. She let out a little squeak, before she managed to contain herself.

"Diggs is the father, isn't he?" she asked, though it appeared from the tone that she already knew the answer.

"She didn't tell Booth who the father was," Brennan said.

"It has to be – _that's _why she came out here. To tell him. Oh, wow. This is huge. Do you have any idea how long those two have been doing the Will They or Won't They dance? And when it wasn't Will They or Won't They, it was Did They or Didn't They? Or They Did, But Will They Ever Again? Seriously, sweetie, these two make you and Booth look like amateurs."

Brennan fell silent, uncertain how to respond to this latest bit of information. Thankfully, Hodgins returned with coffee and the conversation naturally flowed to other topics, before Angela could continue her ruminations.

* * *

><p>Brennan went back upstairs a short time later with a plate of food, and knocked on the door of the room that had been Zack's. Booth opened it immediately, both he and Dosha looking immensely pleased at her arrival.<p>

"Man, am I glad to see you, Bones. I can't believe this place doesn't have a TV… Do you have any idea how boring it is sitting around here guarding a skeleton? I can think of about a hundred and forty things that would be more fun, just off the top of my head."

She handed him the tray and returned to the skeleton immediately, anxious to have an opportunity to look at it more closely.

"So, what's the scoop down there? Did I miss the catfight?"

"I haven't seen any cats here," she said, barely taking the time to look over her shoulder. "Just Dosha, and Erin's dog. And neither of them was down there." She crouched beside the skeleton, examining the new femur more closely. When Booth didn't respond, his meaning became clear.

"You meant fights between Greta and the other women."

"Yeah, Bones, that's what I meant. Old Greta there looks like she could do some damage, but my money's on Cam and Angela."

"There's something odd about this femur," she said. She ran a gloved finger over the eminences at the head of the femur, her brow furrowed. Booth crouched down beside her, leaning in so that his face was next to hers, just inches from the skeleton.

"Doesn't look odd to me, Bones. It looks like a femur."

"Look at how porous the protuberances are, though," she argued. She pointed to the Greater Trochanter, riddled with miniscule craters virtually undetectable to the human eye.

"And the protubera-thingies aren't supposed to be porous?"

"The lower extremity was still fusing to the femoral body – that happens at approximately twenty years old. But the degree of degradation implies a much older individual."

"It couldn't have been caused by exposure? I mean, just 'cause that bone is new to the skeleton doesn't mean it's a fresh kill, right? Maybe somebody dug it up."

"No," she shook her head. "It isn't new, certainly, but it's been carefully preserved. Smell it."

He arched an eyebrow at her, moving away from both she and the skeleton. "Sorry, Bones, that's where I draw the line."

She did it for him. "It's quite clear, even from outward observation - some type of shellac has been used. It's a primitive method of preservation, but still effective."

He looked uncomfortable for a moment. "What about the, uh… You know."

She didn't. After a moment, he finally gave in.

"The toothmarks, Bones – like in the last skeleton. You see any sign of that? Did somebody eat this guy or not?"

"Oh – yes. They're quite clear, actually – without additional testing, I won't be able to provide an accurate timetable for when this individual died, but I would say that it was at least ten years ago. This femur belonged to a young adult male with some type of bone-wasting disease. The individual was killed, his bones gnawed upon, and then preserved in shellac in a low-light environment to prevent further deterioration."

Booth sat down on the floor, exhaling a long burst of air as he did so. "Well, that's just great. So, what – somebody's just got a cellar full of bones they've been saving up 'til they got a chance to fit it in old Gorgonzola here? What the hell kind of island is this?"

Brennan sat down beside him, her gaze still fixed on the skeleton. Dosha immediately settled beside her, her head in Brennan's lap. She stroked the dog's soft fur absently.

"Do you think we're in danger here?" she asked.

A shadow crossed Booth's face at the question. "I don't know. I wish to hell there were a few less people here, though. Sweets, Angela, Hodgins, Erin… There are too many people here standing on shaky ground."

She was pleased that he hadn't included her in that list. He draped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

"You're doing okay?"

"I'm doing very well, actually," she said. She leaned into his embrace.

He kissed her cheek, and then her ear, his stubble scraping her sensitive skin enough to send a charge much like electricity through her in response.

"You wanna fool around, then?"

Dosha looked up with mild annoyance as Booth took Brennan in his arms, his kiss growing in urgency in short order. The dog got up and padded off to the other side of the room.

"_Booth,_" she said. She pushed him away, attempting to maintain some air of propriety.

"_Bones," _he said in response. He sighed. "C'mon, Bones. I've got another hour watching this stupid skeleton. No TV. No sports section. Just a half-metal bucket of bones, and you looking sexy as hell."

"I'm in my coveralls and work boots."

"Yeah, like I said: with you, looking sexy as hell." He leaned in and kissed her again, his body gently pressing her back onto the floor. His lips found her ear, his breath hot on her skin. "Haven't I ever told you what those coveralls do to me?"

She felt that familiar ache at her center that Booth always seemed able to elicit. As had become standard, she felt him hold back as he waited for her to indicate whether or not she was all right to continue.

"Someone could come in," she said after a moment, though in fairness she said the words through a fairly ardent kiss.

"I locked the door."

She pulled back for a moment to see if he was serious. If the look in his eye wasn't enough, the tell-tale bulge in his jeans was very convincing.

"We just had sex a few hours ago."

His hand moved up her inner thigh, his lips returning to her neck. "What's your point, Bones?" When he pressed the palm of his hand against her, she arched into his touch with a small gasp. "Give me the chance, and I'd make love to you six times a day."

Before he could go any further, she abruptly stood. Booth looked unmistakably disappointed, though he was doing an admirable job trying to hide it.

"I'm not making love to you on a hardwood floor," she said.

A slow grin touched his lips. He stood with some difficulty, and nodded toward the bed. "Zoe already sent somebody up to change the sheets. New blankets and everything." She wasn't certain why this was of concern, until she remembered what they had walked in on that morning.

"So, no remnants from Zack and Greta," she interpreted.

"Not one." His gaze bounced from the door to the skeleton to the bed, before ultimately landing on Brennan once more. "So, Bones…" He took a step toward her, his eyes taking on a predatory gleam. "Whaddya say?"

She wrapped her arms around his neck and maneuvered him toward the bed, her lips meeting his with renewed urgency. "I say, I get to be on top."

"No problem, baby," he murmured between kisses, as she ran her hands under his shirt, feeling the strength and power of his back and shoulders.

He sat on the edge of the bed, watching with undisguised hunger as she unbuttoned her coveralls slowly. His tongue ran across his lips as though he were starving and she was the first real food he'd seen in too long. Moisture pooled at her center, the ache deepening as she met his eye.

That ache abruptly vanished, when someone knocked loudly on the door.

Booth's eyes widened; Brennan re-buttoned her coveralls in seconds.

"Hey! The door's locked – everything okay in there, Booth?" Hodgins, Brennan realized.

Damn.

"Yeah, everything's fine," Booth called back. "I was just… It's just a precaution. Extra security, you know."

"Well, let me in," Jack called. "Dr. B wanted me to check out the skeleton, see if I could find any particulates."

Once Brennan was reassembled, she went over and opened the door, attempting to appear nonchalant. Booth had gotten up from the bed and was standing beside the skeleton, for some reason seeming thoroughly absorbed in the left ulna, his arms crossed and his posture tense. He was embarrassed, she realized.

Hodgins did a doubletake when Brennan answered the door.

"Dr. B – I, uh – I didn't realize you were in here." Dosha trotted over and he gave the dog a cursory greeting. "I can come back later, if I was, y'know, interrupting anything."

She met Booth's eye with a smile that warmed her – that shared-joke, just-between-you-and-me smile that she'd spent years seeing from the outside looking in. She shook her head, and opened the door fully.

"No, of course not. Come in."

While they watched Hodgins begin a careful examination of the Gormogon sculpture, Booth leaned in and whispered in her ear.

"Sorry, Bones. Raincheck?"

She tried to suppress a smile, offering a small, businesslike nod. As if he really had to ask.


	11. Chapter Ten

_Chapter Ten_

Once Booth's shift was over with Gorgonzola, he and Sweets headed for the island jail to get some answers from Paul Lindley. It was still snowing, – because apparently in February all it ever did was snow on Monhegan – and Booth was still feeling a little letdown over that rendezvous-that-wasn't with Bones. Not that it wouldn't have been kind of creepy, making love with that damned skeleton looking on, but somehow things like that didn't seem to matter when Bones was around. They'd been together as a couple for six months now, and he still couldn't get enough of her – especially now that they seemed to have worked through everything that had happened since December.

Booth set his mind on the business of catching killers and skeleton thieves, though, and made a point of putting his groin in neutral for a while. Which wasn't easy, when Bones was around.

A sketchy path had been shoveled through town, but Booth still wasn't sure Sweets should be making the trek on foot. The shrink was determined, though, so Booth let it go.

Sweets looked more rested than he had the day before, but Booth noticed that he did bring his cane along this time. Once they were in the open air, a light but steady snow falling, Sweets took a few deep breaths – like he hadn't been getting quite enough air 'til just then. Dosha trotted on ahead of them, diving in the snow and chasing snowflakes like a puppy.

"I realized something yesterday," Sweets said, after a minute or two of walking in silence.

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

Sweets kept right on walking, without looking at him. Booth had a feeling that wasn't an accident.

"I realized that I've been living in perpetual fear since the day I was shot."

Booth tried not to react, making a conscious effort not to dismiss the words. Apparently, Sweets needed to talk. Damn. It was so much easier just saving people's lives – throw a couple punches, take a couple punches, maybe shoot somebody, and you're done. Why the hell did Sweets always have to ruin it by talking a thing to death?

Sweets looked at him, like maybe he sensed what he was thinking.

"But you're not scared anymore?" Booth asked, once he realized it would be rude not to.

"No, I'm definitely still scared – I'm terrified, actually. Yesterday when that gun went off? _Whoa. _I was right there in the Hoover all over again – I mean, I've read about PTSD for years now, I've written papers on it, I've worked closely with I can't tell you how many guys dealing with it."

"It's always a little different once you're the one shaking in your boots," Booth said.

"Exactly! And, I mean… Dude, I was freaked out. I was up in that room just, like, paralyzed. But then I realized… This is a pretty crappy way to live. A grown man hiding behind a bed, praying that everything will be all right. I don't want to be that guy."

"I don't know – I thought you were doing a pretty good job keeping your head after everything that happened. I mean, jeez, Sweets, you almost died. The Hoover got blown to kingdom come. If anybody's earned the right to be a little nuts…"

"You're not, though," Sweets said. "And while I recognize that a lot of your ability to handle stressful situations comes from coping mechanisms you developed during a highly traumatic, abusive childhood – "

Booth shot him a glare. Sweets clammed up for a second.

"Okay, yeah – I know," he said, after a while. "You don't like talking about that stuff. All I'm saying is, I admire the way that you are able to handle these types of situations and apparently move on without the trauma manifesting in a way that prevents you from continuing to do your job."

"Is that why we're out here?" Booth asked. "So you can prove something?"

He laughed ruefully. "Honestly? We're here because I thought it might be, you know…"

"Fun?"

Sweets looked at him like he thought Booth might be making fun of him. When he realized he was serious, the younger man rolled his eyes.

"It sounds dumb now, but… Yeah. Of course, that was before I knew we'd be stuck here during the blizzard of the millennium while some sociopath stole the bones we were supposed to be retrieving. I figured we'd just all come out here and hang out, get a chance to relax a little."

Dosha found a tree branch about a foot longer than her entire body, nose to tail, and tried to drag it to Booth. He stopped, smiling a little, and broke off a piece of the branch to toss down the road for her. She raced after it, bounding through the snow like a seal in high seas.

Sweets went silent. Booth stopped walking and turned to him. He was flushed, the trek obviously already taking its toll, his gloved hand clenched tight around the handle of his cane.

"You okay, Sweets? I can run back, grab one of those four-wheelers Diggs was tooling around on yesterday. Give me five minutes."

"No, I can walk," he said. "I just need a second."

Booth nodded. They stood there for a little while, everything around them washed a brighter white than Booth thought he'd ever seen before. Off in the distance, the horizon was a pale gray, the ocean so dark he couldn't imagine it as something anybody in their right mind would ever try to make a living from.

"All right – I'm ready. Sorry."

"No skin off my back, Sweets. I figure we've got another twenty-four hours on this rock, minimum. Other than a bunch of squirrely suspects I need to interrogate and a little quality time with Bones, there's not a whole hell of a lot else I can do. Besides, it's kind of nice out here."

"It is." He looked at Booth for a second, with a kind of respect that Booth thought went beyond the old days of blind hero worship, then took another couple of deep breaths, shuffling along with his hand on his side like an old man. They walked the rest of the way in silence, trailing along behind Dosha while the snow kept falling and the day wore slowly on.

* * *

><p>The Monhegan jail looked more like an old-time schoolhouse than a place to lock up the bad guys. Booth waited while Sweets struggled up the six steps to the front door, then hurried up himself. Dosha ran up beside him and stood expectantly with her tail swishing back and forth.<p>

"Sorry, Dosh. Stay." He held out his hand, palm up, the way Bones had told him to. Dosha sat down in the snow, but she didn't look all that happy about it. Bones had pretty much taken the dog everywhere since they'd gotten her – Dosha wasn't real well-acquainted with the concept of No Dogs Allowed.

The problem was solved the second Constable Mills saw the dog on the front step, though. He sat at a scuffed old wooden desk doing a crossword, and barely looked up when Booth and Sweets came in the door. Dosha got him on his feet, though.

"You just gonna leave her out there? What the hell are you thinking – have you seen what it's like out there? We're in the middle of a damned blizzard, son."

He grabbed a dog treat from a jar on his desk and Dosha trotted past the threshold and straight to him. Maybe Booth was oversensitive, but he was pretty sure the dog gave him the cold shoulder when she passed.

Paul Lindley was in a jail cell straight out of the Andy Griffith Show: iron bars, cot, little toilet and sink for washing up, on the opposite side of the room from the constable's desk. He looked up when Booth and Sweets came in, but he didn't say a word. Booth grabbed a chair and pulled it up just outside the cell, turning it backward and straddling it, his arms resting on the chair back.

"So, Lindley, how's life behind bars? Used to it yet?" he asked.

Lindley was playing Solitaire on his bunk. He barely looked up.

"Three squares and a roof over my head for a couple days – I think I can handle it."

"A couple days?" Booth laughed. "Yeah, just keep tellin' yourself that, Paulie." He felt the muscles across the back of his shoulders tighten, that old rage welling up when he thought of Will and Sam, now without a mom.

Lindley looked up with a little smile, like he knew exactly what was going on in Booth's head.

"You think you're better than me – is that it, Fed? You think you got the upper hand here?" The smile got mean, beady black eyes getting a little blacker. "You go near my boys again and I'll show you who's got the upper hand."

"Listen, Lindley, I don't know just what you think's gonna happen here, but here are the facts: I've got you in the possession of a valuable relic that's tied to at least a dozen homicides – "

"You've got me with a silver fuckin' bone I found in a hallway, dipshit," Lindley said.

"And I've got you for murder 2, just as soon as my partner takes a look at your wife's autopsy."

He laughed outright at that. "Who the hell do you think is gonna pay for an autopsy when some low-rent bitch from the county goes belly up? Unless you can do your detecting from a bag of ashes scattered across Penobscot Bay, you're out of luck on that one, sport."

Booth started to get up, but Sweets touched him on the arm, gave him a look. He sat back down, with no intention of staying in his seat long.

"Mr. Lindley, you've obviously been through a great deal in the past several months," Sweets said. "You lost your wife, had to fight to get your children back… You've clearly been facing some financial difficulties."

"What's your point?" Lindley's forehead was creased, trying to figure out Sweets's angle.

"Yeah, Sweets, what's your point?" Booth echoed.

"My point is that with the stressors you've been facing, no one could blame you for picking up what was obviously an item of great worth, when you came across it in the hallway at the Monhegan House."

Lindley was obviously waiting for the trap. He nodded carefully. "It has been rough," he said. "I never said it weren't. Nobody knows how hard it is, trying to watch two shitheads like I got – my boys are good, but they don't understand what I'm up against."

"Sure," Sweets nodded. "Parenting can be very difficult – particularly on your own. All Agent Booth and I want to know is a little bit more about that piece of silver you picked up. Did you see anyone else around it? You've been in the hotel for several months now – have you heard anyone mention where it might have come from?"

Lindley looked at Sweets, then at Booth. For a second, Booth thought the shrink's way might actually work, but all of a sudden Lindley's eyes got hard again. He picked up the next card from his deck, restarted his game of Solitaire.

"I don't know what you're talking about. And I know my rights – you either got to charge me with something, or you got to let me go. Just 'cause we're on an island in the middle of nowhere doesn't mean you can just forget about the rules."

Booth said. "Y'know, cell phones may not work out here, but the landlines are just fine. I talked to my office this morning, got the goods on your little 'wife' there – Sophie Redding, right? Born October 18, 1995. I've never been all that good at math, though – how old's that make her, Sweets?"

Sweets made a show of adding it up in his head. "A little over sixteen years old, I believe."

"And what's the age of consent in Maine, Constable Mills?" Booth asked over his shoulder.

The constable looked up from playing tug of war with Dosha. "Eighteen, last I heard."

"And Sophie said she was gonna press charges?" Lindley said doubtfully. "You don't know nothing about what we been doing – we was just friends, I've been taking care of her. You bring her here, have her look me in the eye and say different."

"Yeah, right – that's really gonna happen," Booth said.

He eyed the lock on the door of the cell, the key hanging Old West-style on a keyring on the wall. He wasn't an idiot – he knew the reason Sweets was here didn't really have all that much to do with the case, and everything to do with who Lindley was, and who Booth was. Sweets was just here to protect Booth from doing something stupid. The fact was, there wasn't a chance in hell that Sweets could stop him once he'd made his mind up.

"Tell you what, Lindley – you just tell us about the Gormogon piece, and I'll see what I can do to make sure you go back to playing house with your boys and your little girlfriend there." Booth was lying through his teeth, but it still felt wrong saying the words.

Lindley gave him an oily smile, pushing his lank dark hair out of his eyes. "Yeah, sure you will. I buy that and I guess you can probably get me a nice price on the Brooklyn Bridge too, huh?"

Before the words were out Booth was up, had the key, and was through the cell door before Sweets could even get on his feet. Lindley's eyes got wider once there were no bars separating them. Booth slammed the door shut again and locked it behind him, then grabbed Lindley and pinned him against the wall, his hand around his throat and their faces maybe six inches apart.

"You listen to me, you sick son of a bitch," he whispered, just barely aware that Dosha was barking and Sweets was yelling at him, the constable scrambling for a spare set of keys.

"You think I give a shit whether you ever see your kids again? You think when I see a guy like you, I really care what condition you're in when you get your day in court? Now, I'm asking nicely – what do you know about Gormogon?"

There was a split second when he was positive Lindley would spill whatever he knew, his eyes wide and his rail-thin body shaking. Before he broke, though, the constable had the cell door open and a gun pointed at Booth's back.

"I don't know how you boys do it in D.C.," Constable Mills said, his voice a whole lot darker than Booth would have thought it might get, "but where I'm from, we don't beat confessions out of people. Now you'll kindly let him go and get out of this cell, before I have to clear out the one my sister's been using for a sewing room in the back, and put you in it."

Booth waited a couple of seconds, the rage riding so high now that it was all he could do to loosen his grip enough to let Lindley go. The bastard clutched at his throat and fell back onto his cot, cursing the whole time. The constable pushed Booth back through the cell door, grumbling the whole time, and was careful to pocket the key this time after he locked Lindley inside again.

"Wow," Sweets said, his eyes kind of wide. "That was totally not cool. Seriously, dude. We really need to work on those rage issues."

Booth just pushed past him. "Come on – we're not gonna get anything out of him like this."

He was already to the door when Lindley called after him, his voice still rough from having Booth's hand around his throat.

"I meant what I said – you think I didn't? You go near my boys again, you're gonna be sorry. Sammy's already got a couple scars with your name on them from the last time you tried to turn him against me – it'll be a hell of a lot worse the second time around. Either way, I'm coming for you. You can take that to the bank."

Booth's jaw tightened. It took every bit of self-control in his body not to go back to the cell and beat the living hell out of the man.

Instead, he just kept on walking.

* * *

><p>When Booth got back, all five kids that had been playing video games together the day before were gathered in the dining room, playing board games with Diggs, Hodgins, and Angela. Lindley's girlfriend Sophie and a couple Booth hadn't met before were drinking coffee at the next table. He poured a cup for himself and took a seat next to Sophie, noting that she went to a hell of a lot of trouble not to look at him.<p>

"So, you guys all live here year 'round?" he asked, directing the question at the couple. They were in their late twenties, he'd guess, both of them a little plump, obviously spooked by everything that was going on.

The woman nodded. "We moved back a few years ago – I grew up here." She held out her hand. "I'm Jenna – this is my husband, Mark. You're with the police?"

"Yeah – FBI. Agent Seeley Booth."

"The girls mentioned you last night," Mark said. He pointed to the little brunette girl Booth had carried down the stairs the day before, sitting beside another girl, maybe a couple years older. "Karen and Ashley. Thanks for looking out for them."

"I had a lot of help. They okay?"

"Bad dreams last night," Jenna said. "But other than that, they were fine. And now that they have a few new playmates, they're happy as clams. I'm grateful – you can only be cooped up with kids that age for so long before everybody starts to go a little stir crazy."

He smiled, thinking of how nuts Parker would be going about this time, after being snowbound in a hotel for two days.

"Did you see Paul?" Sophie asked, low. She looked like she'd been crying – and not tears of joy, either. It was something he'd never understand: she was a pretty girl, sixteen years old… How bad must her life have been, that a scumbag like Paul Lindley seemed like the best she could hope for?

"Yeah, I saw him. He wasn't real helpful, I've gotta tell you."

Jenna and Mark looked at each other, then at Booth. He nodded in answer to the question they hadn't asked.

"You can go, if you want. I just wanted to ask Sophie here a couple questions."

He waited until they were gone before he turned his attention back to the girl next to him.

"Sophie, we did a little checking. I know you're a minor. I know you're a runaway. I know you and Paul Lindley haven't been shacked up in this hotel room all winter tradin' recipes."

She barely blinked; he was surprised at how well she was holding up. Considering the drugs they'd found in the room with them, he'd kind of expected the both of them to be in deep withdrawal by now, but both Paul and Sophie seemed to be doing just fine. All he saw was a faint tremor when she lifted the coffee mug to her lips. She set the cup back down, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. When she looked at Booth, there was a strength in her eyes he hadn't seen before.

"You can't send me back home."

"Sometimes the things you run away from are a hell of a lot scarier than where you end up – I understand that," he said with a nod. "I know some people, we can help you get straightened out. You're almost seventeen; there are ways around putting you back with your parents, if you don't want to go."

"I don't want to be in the system, either. But my folks'll kill me," she said, her tone still dead even. By the look in her eye, he knew she wasn't just being dramatic.

"We'll figure it out, all right? You just gotta trust me. And you have to believe me when I say, Paul Lindley isn't your best option right now. He's about to go down for some big messes right now. Kidnapping his sons, theft, possession, statutory rape… You know what happened to his wife?"

She lowered her eyes. Booth's best guess was that she'd heard exactly what happened to Lindley's wife: it had been the way the fuckin' prick had kept Sophie in line whenever she started to get out of hand.

"He's not a good man, Sophie. Now, all I need from you is some idea of where that silver leg bone he had in his room came from. If you can help me with that…"

Sophie didn't say anything for a few seconds. Across the room, it looked like the game was breaking up, everybody headed back to their rooms. Booth looked up to find Sam watching them, his forehead furrowed with concern. Booth nodded his head toward the table, indicating the brothers should join him and Sophie. Sam came over first, Will dragging behind.

"Hey, fellas. I was just talking to Sophie here, asking a couple questions. You mind joining us?"

Sam sat down immediately; Will stayed where he was.

"Where's our dad?" the younger boy asked.

Booth paused for a second. He remembered, suddenly, sitting in a police station with Jared and his mom. Cops coming over, asking questions about their dad while Jared got more and more pissed and Seeley just tried to hold it together. His nose had been bleeding – he remembered that. The rest of the memory was kind of a blur, though.

He looked Will in the eye.

"Your dad's in jail, Will. You know why?"

The kid's eyes welled immediately, a fat tear rolling down his cheek. "Our dad takes care of us."

"I know he tries, buddy. But your dad's got some problems – you know that, right? Sam's been trying to hold things together since your mom died, but I think it's probably been pretty hard for you guys. So, we're gonna give your dad a break, and Sophie here is gonna get herself together, and _you_…" he leaned closer, eyebrows raised, "are gonna move back in with your Aunt Becky and your brother. You guys are gonna go back to school, you're gonna have your own rooms…"

"Dad won't like that," Sam said. His eyes had gotten hard, fixed on the tabletop. His fists were clenched so tight Booth thought his knuckles would come right through the skin. "You should just leave us alone. We weren't hurting anybody."

He thought about that for a few seconds, the silence weighing in around the table. Everyone else in the room had taken off – it was just the four of them, and that deep quiet that comes from old houses and snowy days.

"You remember that story I told you yesterday, Sam? About my Pops taking my brother and me, when my dad couldn't take care of us anymore?"

Sam nodded. Will and Sophie were both listening close, he could tell.

"Before he took us, things weren't so good at home. I have a little brother like you do – his name's Jared. And we both loved our folks, but they had some problems. Our dad had a lot of problems. And so does yours, guys. It's not fair, but sometimes that's just the way life goes. And now, the best thing you can do is take care of each other, and listen to your Aunt Becky, and trust me when I say that I'm not gonna let your dad hurt you again."

"You won't stop him," Sophie said, so soft he almost didn't hear her.

All three of them turned to look at her. Sam nodded.

"She's right," he said, just as soft. "You don't know my dad. They tried to take us before, and he wouldn't let them. He said nobody takes what's his. And it just makes it worse when people try."

Silence fell over the table again. Booth took a deep breath, then touched both boys hands.

"I want you guys to look at me. You too, Sophie. You see me? I look like a pretty tough guy, right? I mean – I'm no Captain America or anything, but I can hold my own." He didn't continue until everybody had nodded. "Your dad's in jail. You hear that, Sophie? Paul's in jail. He's not getting out. He's not coming near you again. That's a promise."

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to find Bones standing behind him. "Booth never breaks a promise – he's very trustworthy."

He smiled. "See that? Bones here is a world-class forensic anthropologist _and _a bestselling writer. You think she's gonna steer you wrong?"

Sam shook his head, Will and Sophie following suit after a little while.

"All right – good. Now that that's settled, I want you guys to go on up to your room with Sophie, okay? I'm gonna come up there a little later with some hot cocoa, and we're gonna talk about what's been going on with your dad since you moved out to the island this fall. Deal?"

Sophie nodded. She stood up, all of a sudden seeming about twenty years older than he knew she was.

"Come on, buds. Star Wars and S'Mores in five."

The boys scampered up the stairs, Sophie trailing along behind. Once they were out of sight, Bones leaned down and kissed his cheek, then took the seat beside him.

"You're very good with them," she said.

He shrugged. "Well, y'know… I've been there, Bones. I mean, I look in Sam's eyes, and it's like I know exactly what he's thinking."

"It's not just Sam and Will, though." She took his hand, looked him in the eye. She had that deep, soulful look she got sometimes, once she'd managed to get past how scared she was of all this personal crap. He waited for her to say what was on her mind.

"I want us to set a date," she finally said. Since he didn't actually know what the hell she was talking about, he stayed silent, waiting for her to clarify. Of course, she didn't say a damned word more.

"A date for what, Bones?"

Her smile grew into a smartass grin. "A _date._" She moved in closer and kissed the line of his jaw, her smell sweet and familiar, her body soft against his. "… To get married," she whispered, not far from his ear.

He pulled back, knowing his eyes had to be about three times wider than normal, his smile even bigger than that. "Yeah?"

"Just a quiet wedding," she said quickly. "I don't want anything elaborate."

"Yeah, I think we've been over that one before."

"And I don't want to spend a great deal of money, or have a large guest list."

"It doesn't matter to me, Bones – I don't care if it's just the two of us saying our vows to an Elvis impersonator… Whatever you want."

He wrapped his arms around her, his mouth finding hers with more urgency than he'd intended. When they parted, she put her hand on his cheek. Looked in his eyes.

"I've never understood the concept of marriage before. But for some reason it makes more sense when I think of it in the context of you and I."

"That's 'cause we're meant to be, Bones." She did that head-tilt thing that always made him nuts, along with a little eyeroll of those baby blues. "Make fun if you want, babe, but I knew the day I first laid eyes on you that there was something there."

She leaned in to kiss him.

And Hodgins walked in.

Jesus. Booth was tempted to buy the man a bell.

"Oh – hey, sorry," Hodgins said. "I'd tell you guys to get a room, but… Well."

"Yeah, funny," Booth said shortly, pulling his chair back at the same time Bones did, so they ended up with about six feet between them. "What'd you find out about the bones?"

"Not much. They've all been preserved with a low-resin shellac, and I've found traces of basalt particles and a couple of other igneous rock – "

Booth looked at Bones for a translation.

"Granite – probably from being in the basement for so long."

Hodgins nodded a confirmation. Before he could continue, Zack and his psycho girlfriend came in. Instantly, Booth felt himself tense up – he didn't like Greta. He'd met girls like her before, usually at the winning end of a lost weekend in his gambling days; in his experience, they never led anywhere good.

"We came down for some lunch," Zack said.

Booth glanced at his watch; it was just after eleven o'clock. When you were snowbound and had been up since four a.m., though, time had a way of losing all meaning. It could have been two in the afternoon or midnight, the way he was feeling.

Zoe came out like she had some kind of sixth sense that kicked in when her guests were hungry, and before long the rest of the crew had filed in, with the exception of Tripp and Cam – it was Tripp's turn to guard the skeleton, so they'd be down later. They pushed a couple of tables together at the back of the dining room, and everybody settled in.

* * *

><p>Within an hour, everybody but Tripp and Cam, Sweets, and Erin, had gathered in the dining room. Once they had stew and chicken salad sandwiches on some of the thickest, best-smelling homemade bread Booth had ever come across, it didn't take long before Angela started stirring up trouble. Since she was seven months' pregnant and trapped on a snowbound island, Booth figured she'd earned a little leeway, though.<p>

"So, Booth, how was bunking with Ellie last night?" she asked with a little smartass grin.

"Who's Ellie?" Bones wanted to know, right off the bat.

"Ellie's the ghost of this little girl who was killed by her father, in the room Booth is staying in. Isn't that sad?" Angela asked.

"There's no such thing as ghosts," Bones and Zack said at the same time.

Booth thought of the way the lights had flickered, the fire in the fireplace… The ringing phone with nobody on the other end. He avoided Bones's eye and took another bite of his sandwich.

"I don't think Booth's with you on that one, sweetie," Angela said.

Bones gave him that look that usually meant she was about to reveal something he _really _didn't want revealed, to everybody in the room. Sure enough, she spoke up before he could say anything.

"Is _that _why you wanted to stay with me last night? Because you were afraid of a ghost?"

He felt himself go bright pink. "What? No – jeez, Bones. I thought it was pretty clear why I wanted to stay with you last night."

He couldn't deny some satisfaction when she went a little pink herself.

"I thought I saw something out the window last night," Hodgins volunteered.

Zoe didn't even give that a beat. "Out the west window, right? That's Jim Mendenhall – drowned out here about thirty years ago, trying to save his wife and their baby girl, after they got swept away with the surf. You can see him – hear him, too, some say – out there at night sometimes, still trying to save his family."

Angela shivered, and Booth felt a chill run straight up his spine. "Jeez – didn't anybody die happy out here?" he asked.

"I don't think so. These old islands are some of the creepiest places I've ever been," Angela agreed.

"Yeah, but the creepiest has got to be that story you told me last night," Hodgins said, looking at Angela. "The cult thing?"

Booth was starting to feel like he was ten years old again, back in summer camp. Angela glanced around the room like she was looking for someone, then glanced at Diggs, who was sitting on her left, while Hodgins was on her right. Booth watched with some interest when Diggs looked away, just the faintest hint of hardness to his jaw. Like he didn't approve of whatever it was she was about to say.

Angela lowered her voice. "That's over on an island a couple miles from here, though. It wasn't really a big deal."

Hodgins looked at her like she was nuts. "Not a big deal? Like fifty people kill themselves just across the bay, and _that's _not a big deal? C'mon, Angie… You've gotta tell the story."

Diggs had his eyes fixed on his coffee cup. Angela looked at him, a little guilty, before she nodded.

"Okay, fine… Just… Shh, okay?" Angela said. She glanced at the door again, though Booth couldn't figure out who the hell she thought would walk in.

"About twenty years ago, there was a cult called The Payson Church of Tomorrow. Nobody knew much about them, except it was run by this weird preacher guy named Isaac, who brought people over there from his church in Boston. And one day he takes them all out into the island chapel, they all drink some Kool Aid or something laced with some herbal drug, and he lights the place on fire. The whole congregation died," she finished, her words hurried now.

"Whoa," Hodgins interrupted. "That's not the way you told it last night."

Angela glanced at Diggs guiltily again. He looked at her this time, with a shrug. "Might as well tell the whole story, Ange." He took a long pull of coffee and set it down.

"Just one member of the church remained, actually," Diggs picked up where Angela had left off. "He'd been on the mainland when the fire happened, celebrating his daughter's birthday. When he saw what had happened, legend has it that he went mad. For ten years, he roamed the island, trying to find other survivors. And then, on the tenth anniversary of the fire, he – "

Booth noticed that Angela's face had gone pale, an unmistakable touch of desperation in her eyes. Once Diggs saw the look, he stopped talking. Booth followed Angela's gaze at the same time that Diggs did.

Erin stood in the doorway, her face pale and dark circles under her eyes. The room was so still Booth could swear he could hear the old inn creaking under all the tension.

"He _what_?" Zack broke the silence, totally clueless. Angela looked like she might beat him senseless.

Erin recovered after a second and came in smoothly, poured herself some coffee, and sat down beside Diggs.

"You want to finish or should I, Diggs?" she asked casually.

Diggs just looked at her, an apology clear in his eyes.

"No?" Erin asked. "Okay, then – I'll tell it. So, after ten years of roaming the island, the madman finally has enough," she said, reciting the words like she'd memorized them, "so he hangs himself from a beam in the old church greenhouse. But to this day, they say you can still hear his cries in the wind. You can still see him searching the island for the church that he lost."

No one said anything for a while, though Booth still wasn't clear on why, exactly, Erin was reacting to the story that way.

"You want me to grab you some food?" Diggs asked, low.

She shook her head. Sort of leaned into him for a second, like she was too tired to sit up straight, but she caught herself before she leaned too far.

"You should eat something," Diggs said, before Booth could get out exactly the same words. "Let me get you some soup."

She must have sensed that he wasn't gonna let up, because she finally shrugged. "Fine – but you don't need to wait on me. I'll get it."

Just before she left the room, she turned. The table was still kind of quiet, though Booth suspected no one really know why things had gotten so tense. Erin looked directly at Diggs when she spoke.

"Oh, yeah – I almost forgot. The upshot to that story… The madman who roamed the island, hanged himself, and still haunts the place? That was my dad. I was the reason he didn't die with the rest of his church." She looked away for a second, her eyes softer than Booth figured she probably liked. "He never forgave me for that."

She paused, wet her lips, her gaze wavering for just a second before she looked at Diggs again, dead on, a challenge in her eyes.

"So, now everybody's got the whole story – I'm sure it would have come out within the hour, anyway. I'll just be in the kitchen. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves."

Booth watched her try to keep up the cool façade. She did a pretty good job – all the same, he could practically see the anger coming off her. The room was dead silent after she left. A second later, Diggs got up and followed her into the kitchen.

"Well, that was awkward," Hodgins finally said, breaking the tension.

"Nice job, babe," Angela said to him.

"What? You couldn't have mentioned last night that your friend there played a pretty major role in the story?"

"She'll be fine," Zoe said. "Erin's spent most of her life with people whispering about her dad behind her back. It's better to have it out in the open. She'll make it – she's one tough customer, that girl."

Booth wasn't quite so sure.

They were just settling back down to continue eating when the phone at the front desk rang. Zoe hopped up and went to answer. Diggs and Erin were still in the kitchen, and Booth found himself wondering if she was okay. He was hoping she'd told Diggs what was going on with her, but, somehow, Booth would lay odds that she hadn't.

That whole line of thought derailed the second Zoe came back into the dining room, her usually ruddy face a shade or two paler.

"What happened?" Booth asked immediately.

"That was Jack Andrews – he owns the gallery out by the jail. He says he heard gunshots."

Booth's stomach twisted, and he was on his feet in an instant. "Lindley?"

Zoe shook her head. "The constable's hurt – Jack said he doesn't even know if he's gonna make it. And Lindley's gone."


	12. Chapter Eleven

_**Okay, guys, I have to offer my most sincere apologies for this lengthy delay between updates, though I do have three chapters for your reading pleasure this evening... Which will hopefully start to make up for my long absence. For those of you who haven't heard already, I am also doing a new, free monthly multi-fandom e-zine that will be delivered to subscribers on the first of each month. Contests, author interviews, writing tips, and fanfic from some of the best writers on the web... You should check it out. Really. It's gonna be epic. The website is www dot bwfanficezine dot com, and also has some pretty cool perks, if I do say so myself. **  
><em>

_Chapter Eleven_

Booth's face went a shade paler the moment he heard the news; he was running for the stairs before the words were out of Zoe's mouth.

"Where are you going?" Brennan called after him.

"The kids – he'll go after the boys first."

The rest of the group stood in baffled silence. Since Brennan had no idea what to say to them, she opted to follow behind Booth in the hope that she could be of some assistance there.

Booth was at the Lindley door with his gun drawn when she reached him.

"What if he's already here?" she asked softly.

"Guess we're about to find out. Stand back, Bones."

She drew her own gun, standing to the left of the door while Booth stood to the right. He knocked with his back pressed to the wall, calling over his shoulder.

"Sophie? It's Agent Booth. Open up, please."

There was a long pause – during which Brennan's heart rate accelerated and she tightened her grip on the Glock in her hands – before the door opened. She swallowed past her fear, and stepped away from the shelter of the adjacent wall.

Sophie stood at the door, her eyes wide.

"What happened?" the girl asked.

"It's Paul," Booth said. "You need to come with us."

Sam appeared behind her, a look that was at once terror and a strange, world-weary resignation on his face.

"He got away?" the boy asked.

"We'll get him," Booth said. "It'll be all right. You'll see." She noted that Booth did a quick visual sweep of the room before crossing the threshold.

"In the meantime," Brennan picked up, "you'll need to come with us. We'll protect you."

None of the three protested. As they were packing a bag of extra clothing, Booth pulled her aside. The look on his face was enough to tell her that she wasn't going to like whatever he was about to say.

"I need you to do something for me. I want you to take the boys somewhere safe - I won't be able to stay with you guys."

She stared at him, uncomprehending. "But our primary objective should be keeping the boys safe until Lindley is apprehended."

"And who, exactly, do you think is gonna do that apprehending? I'm the only law out here right now, except for a chubby constable with a concussion. I've gotta go try and figure out what happened over at the jail. It's a small island – hopefully, I'll be able to catch up with Lindley quick and get him locked up again."

Sophie and the boys reappeared at that point, preventing she and Booth from finishing their conversation. He was right, however – she knew that he was. The idea of Booth out there alone trying to take down an armed and obviously dangerous assailant, however, did not sit well with her.

Before they parted ways, Booth led Brennan and their wayward trio back to the room where the Gormogon skeleton was being kept. He knocked without bothering with an explanation.

Brennan heard shuffling and some exclamations of obvious displeasure coming from within the room before Cam opened the door.

"What's up?" the pathologist asked brusquely. Her hair and clothes were uncharacteristically mussed. As soon as she saw that Booth and Brennan were not alone, however, her manner shifted; it was quite apparent that something was wrong. Behind her, Brennan caught a glimpse of Tripp straightening his trousers.

Booth didn't even bother with an apology. "I just heard from the sheriff – "

"Constable," Brennan corrected him.

"Whatever, Bones – the lawman on Monhegan. Lindley's out."

Tripp appeared at Cam's side instantly. "What do you need?"

"I need somebody to come check out the crime scene with me – make sure the Constable is okay. But I've also gotta have somebody watching these guys." He nodded toward Sam, Will, and Sophie, who were all standing in the hallway looking shell shocked.

"I'll do the crime scene," Cam said. "Tripp can come with me. You two take protection detail."

Booth shook his head. "No – I appreciate that, but it's not gonna work. I've gotta go check out the jail, try to figure out what the hell is going on here. Tripp, I want you to go with Bones – Cam, you're with me." He glanced at Tripp. "You up for this?"

He nodded gamely. "Yeah – whatever you need, you know that."

"Great. Thanks, man." He pulled Brennan aside once again, the concern clear in his eyes now. "I want you to take them down to the basement, okay? Into the secret room. Keep an eye on the exit, keep 'em calm – Tripp'll be good at that. I'll come for you as soon as I can. Three fast knocks, three slow. If anybody tries to get in without that knock, I want you to shoot first and ask questions later."

"But you always tell me not to shoot until all other options have been exhausted."

"Not this time, okay? This guy's got a screw loose, and we're keeping him from his kids. You don't wait." He glanced at the others, then back at Brennan once more. He lowered his voice. "You know I love you, right?"

"We'll be all right, Booth."

"I know." He didn't seem convinced. "Just… Remember that, okay? No crazy heroics. I'll be back as soon as I can."

He kissed her briefly, told the others to follow her instructions, and then he and Cam left. Brennan looked at Tripp, trying to gauge how best to proceed.

"We better get out of here," he said, as though he had read her mind.

She nodded, leading the way down the stairs to the first floor. Booth must have provided instructions for the other guests on his way out, because the only people who remained in the dining room when she and Tripp got there were Hodgins and Sweets, Dosha waiting impatiently beside them. The dog yipped happily as soon as Brennan appeared, racing to her side, and Brennan was pleased to note that Sam, Will, and Sophie were all distracted - and quite obviously soothed - by the animal's presence.

"Booth asked us to take the next shift with the skeleton. You guys have everything covered?" Hodgins asked.

"We do. You better get up there – no one's watching the skeleton right now."

Sweets looked nervous, and for once didn't seem to have anything to say about everything that was transpiring. Brennan didn't dwell on the conversation, however, her sense of urgency growing with each passing second.

She went to the basement with her gun raised, checking the space thoroughly before she pronounced it safe. As they made their way down the precarious steps, she noted that the boys seemed unaffected by the dank surroundings, but Sophie was clearly less enthusiastic.

"We have to stay down here?" the girl asked.

"Not for long," Tripp promised. Brennan bit her lip to refrain from pointing out that he didn't actually know that at all.

They crept through the narrow secret passage, the boys and Sophie all slipping through easily, Dosha following behind them. Brennan felt herself growing breathless halfway through, but she persevered. Once they'd gotten to the other side, Tripp lit a few of the candles scattered throughout the room. Sophie sat at the antique table, clearly anxious, while Sam and Will sat across from her.

"What is this place?" Sophie finally asked. The silence had become oppressive; Brennan was grateful for the reprieve. It seemed that not even Tripp's usual gregariousness could overcome their situation.

"We believe it was used for sacred rituals as far back as the mid-nineteenth century," she informed the girl.

"What kind of rituals?" she asked, an uneasy tremor in her voice.

"Cannibalistic human sacrifice meant to – "

Tripp stopped her with a raised eyebrow. "Hey, how about a game of cards?" he interrupted. "This looks like a great place for a little poker."

"They ate people in this place?" Sophie persisted.

"Dr. Brennan was just kidding," Tripp said quietly. Before Brennan could protest, he fixed her with a steady gaze. "Right, Dr. Brennan?"

She hesitated another moment before she caught the drift.

"Oh – yes. Of course. I was just joking. No one was ever murdered and eaten here. That was simply forensic anthropology humor. Non-forensic anthropologists often fail to understand my jokes. I'm certain this room was just built for card games."

Tripp smiled. "See? Card games."

"Where'd that skeleton thing go that was here before?" Will asked, gazing at the very spot where Brennan had ascertained the Gormogon skeleton had been just a few days prior.

"How do you know about that?" she asked. She felt a cold knot tighten in her stomach. She touched Will's arm, unable to keep the urgency from her voice.

"We followed our dad here," Sam said. "I know we weren't supposed to, but we heard him talking about treasure. We got curious."

Tripp caught her eye; clearly, he had also caught the significance. Booth had been under the impression that Lindley knew nothing about this room. It changed things considerably now that she knew that had been erroneous.

"If he knew about the room – " she said quietly to Tripp.

Before she could complete her sentence, Brennan heard a man's voice calling out from somewhere in the distance. It took a moment for her to realize it was coming from inside the basement, a scant tunnel's length away. It wasn't Booth – even from here, underground and insulated by granite, she would have been able to discern his voice from someone else's. Dosha growled beside her.

Brennan stared at their only exit, her body on high alert now. She readied her weapon, had Tripp upend the heavy old table – not an easy request – and ordered everyone to seek cover behind it. Dosha's growls grew more insistent. Brennan could hear someone open the trapdoor on the other end of the tunnel.

"Dr. Brennan?" she heard Sam address her. She responded without taking her eyes from the tunnel entrance, her body coiled tightly.

"What is it?"

"Why don't we just run away?"

She felt an unwelcome wave of impatience. This was precisely why children were not a good addition to dangerous situations.

"There's only one exit. And based on what I'm hearing – "

"Nuh unh," Will interrupted. "There's a back tunnel."

"But we searched – " Brennan started to argue.

"Where?" Tripp cut her off, his voice laden with tension.

Sam went to the cubby hole that she and Booth had examined the previous day, plunging his small hand in farther than Brennan would have expected was possible. Then, he pulled with all of his might – though even with all of his strength, the seemingly solid rock wall barely budged. Tripp joined him, and a moment later Brennan was staring at an exit barely wide enough for them to slip through.

"Come on," Tripp said urgently, pushing Sophie and the children through. He held his hand out to Brennan, who shook her head.

"I need to make sure everyone stays safe – if it's Lindley, he knows about the exit. He'll follow us. Just go. I'll come for you when it's safe."

Tripp remained rooted to the spot. "If something happened to you, Seeley would – "

"That's not your concern right now. Your concern is those children. _That's _why you're here. Not to protect me."

After another moment, during which time Brennan could hear a scuffling coming from inside the tunnel, Tripp finally conceded her point. He left. Brennan attempted to get Dosha to follow him, but the dog remained rooted by her side. She closed the secret exit securely behind Tripp, grabbed Dosha, and crouched behind the table once more, her gun directed at the tunnel entrance.

She waited.

TBC


	13. Chapter Twelve

_Chapter Twelve_

Booth and Cam were halfway to the Mayberry jail before either of them said a word. Cam had to jog to keep up with him, but Booth couldn't seem to slow down. It was just too much to believe – how the hell had Lindley gotten loose? He already knew exactly what the sleaze ball's next move would be: he'd go after the boys. He'd done it before, Booth knew damned well he wasn't going to change his M.O. now.

He was already regretting leaving Sophie and the kids with Bones. What had he been thinking, coming out to this island with everybody when he had no backup and not a damned soul to turn to if things went south? Actually, he knew exactly what he'd been thinking: that he was going to a remote island in Maine to look at hundred-year-old bones, so why would he even need backup?

Yeah, he was an idiot.

"Hey! Seeley!"

Booth turned at Cam's voice, her hand on his arm. She was gasping for breath, and looking not-at-all amused that she'd been left in the dust.

"I know you're worried, but if we could try _not _breaking land speed records at twenty below zero, I'd really appreciate it."

"I'm not worried, Camille."

"No, of course not – why would you be?" Cam had never been afraid of a little sarcasm, and now her voice was dripping with it. At the look on his face, she backed off a hair. "They'll be all right. Brennan's a good shot, and Tripp…"

"… Wouldn't know the barrel end of a gun if it shot him in the ass."

"Well… Yeah, okay. That's fair. But he's good at hiding, I bet. And he'll keep the boys entertained until we can get our hands on their father and put him back where he belongs."

"Yeah, right. 'Cause I'm sure that'll be a cinch."

"Look around you. We're on an iceberg, Seeley. How far do you really think he got?"

"I don't think he's gone far at all, _Camille. _That's the problem."

"Hey, don't get pissy with me. I'm on your side, remember?"

He felt a pang of remorse when he realized she was probably just as worried as he was. It seemed like the snow was easing up for the time being, just dusting Cam's shoulders and the top of her hood, the light already fading on the horizon as the afternoon marched on. Booth wiped a snowflake from Cam's nose, before he started back on the trail again.

"Yeah, I know – sorry," he said. "And you're the one who got interrupted before you got your rocks off this afternoon, so I should just be grateful you're along for the ride. I know how miserable you can be when that happens."

Cam rolled her eyes at him. If she wasn't so damned cold, Booth would've bet a dollar he could have seen her blushing.

"All I can say is, Lindley better watch out," she said, her eyes flashing. "He picked the wrong shift for a prison break."

They rounded the corner where the jail was just as a gust of wind was coming up off the water. Booth closed his eyes against the pellets of ice and snow, his irritation growing. God, it would be good to get off this damned island. He did a preliminary check of the perimeter, hoping for footprints or maybe even a blood trail, but the wind was still blowing too hard – any prints that had been there were already covered up.

He and Cam stopped a couple of feet from the front steps at sight of Constable Mills, sitting on the top step beside a big bearded guy with a barrel chest and glasses. The constable had definitely seen better days – Booth was already rethinking his approach with the old man, since he figured the poor guy had probably been beaten up enough for one day.

His left eye was swollen shut, and he had a fat lip and what Booth figured was probably a broken nose. None of that seemed all that important, however, when you compared it to the blood-soaked jacket he was still wearing, the left sleeve hanging loose while a man beside him bandaged his arm.

Mills hung his head in shame the minute he saw Booth.

"You don't have to tell me – I know. I screwed the pooch on this one."

"What the hell happened?" Booth asked, though he managed to keep the hardness from his voice when he asked the question.

"I was putting the bastard's lunch in his cell, and he got the jump on me. We fought, he got my gun, and… Bam. I'm down, and he's out the door."

"Are paramedics on the way?" Cam asked.

The other man shook his head. "No way to get here – choppers aren't flying, no boats in the water. He's stable now. Lost a lot of blood, though – I'm gonna take him home."

"The hell you are, Jack," Mills said. "I'm not going home 'til Lindley's either in the ground or back in that cell. I've been at this job forty years, and nobody's ever made a fool of me like he just did."

"It could have happened to anybody," Booth tried reassuring him. Now that he saw how upset the old man was, he felt bad for blaming the guy in the first place. "You need to take care of yourself – Dr. Saroyan here is gonna go in and check out the crime scene." He looked at Cam, who nodded and went inside ahead of him, without a word.

"I don't know that we'll learn much, but it's worth a shot," Booth continued, once Cam was gone. "I've already got a pretty good idea where he's headed."

Mills looked up. "And where's that?"

"To get his kids," Booth said. "He has a pattern – he won't just leave them behind."

A flicker of doubt crossed Mills's face.

"You think I'm wrong?"

"Nah – you know what you're doing, I guess," Mills said. "He'd just have to be a damned fool to try and set foot back in that hotel. He took the key to my boat when he left. My guess is he's gonna try to get off this rock."

"There's no way he'd try to leave the island now, though," Booth said. He wished he felt half as sure of himself as he sounded. "You said yourself not even the Coast Guard is risking it out there."

The constable shrugged noncommittally. "I don't pretend to know what's going on in Lindley's thick skull. I just know he took my key, and he knows the whole hotel's gonna be on high alert."

Booth suddenly wished he'd brought Sweets with him. Something about all this was bugging him. He'd been so sure he knew what was going on in Lindley's head, but he definitely hadn't seen a jail break coming. And he sure as hell couldn't picture the guy leaving without Will and Sam. Men like that had a sickness – Booth had seen it before. They looked at everyone they loved as possessions; God help anybody who tried to take them away.

He told Mills's buddy to finish patching him up and take him home, and then he went in to join Cam. She was crouched over a blood smear just outside the jail cell, taking a swab and setting out evidence markers like it was just another day on the job.

"Looks like the old man got his clock cleaned," she said without looking up.

"Yeah – I've gotta tell you, this Lindley guy isn't high on my list of favorite people right now. What would you say happened here?"

She straightened and met his eye. "He didn't tell you?"

"Nah, he did."

"But you want to make sure his story matches the evidence," she guessed. "Got it. Well – from what I can tell, the whole thing started here – " she pointed to a couple flecks of blood about eye level with her, on the old jail cell bars. "Go on inside and I'll show you."

He grimaced, but did as he was told.

"Okay," she said. "I don't know why the old man got so close, but as soon as he was within arm's length, Lindley grabs Mills through the bars."

At the look in her eye – clearly an order – Booth reached through and gingerly took hold of her jacket.

"Then Lindley pulls Mills to the bars, smashing his forehead against them," Cam mimed bashing her head against the steel, while Booth kept hold of her jacket, letting her do all the work. "Then, he reaches through and takes the constable's keys, and lets himself out."

"And then he beats the crap out of Mills and shoots him in the arm?" Booth asked doubtfully. "Why not just run? Or, if he's so bent on kicking somebody's ass, why didn't he finish the job?"

"That was my fault," Mills said. He leaned heavily against the doorsill leading into the jailhouse, a gust of cold wind following him inside. He was paler than Booth had noticed before.

"Listen, sir, I wish you'd get off your feet for a little while," Booth said.

"I will, I will," the old man waved him off. "I just want to make sure you get all the details you need. I went down, but then I grabbed him as he was headed out. We fought. That's when he knocked me sideways and clipped my wing."

"You're lucky to be alive," Cam said. "It doesn't sound like this guy messes around."

"Eh - guess the gods were smiling on me. You have any other questions?"

"No," Cam said quickly. "You should go home – get some rest. We'll contact you if anything else comes up."

They watched as Mills gingerly turned and closed the door behind him, leaving Booth and Cam on their own again. Booth leaned against the cell bars and gazed around the room. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he hoped he found it soon: he was itching to get back to the inn to make sure Bones was okay.

_TBC_


	14. Chapter Thirteen

_Chapter Thirteen_

By the time the little door leading into their secret room finally, slowly creaked open, Brennan was so on edge she was afraid she wouldn't be able to keep herself from shooting whoever might appear – whether it was Lindley or not.

The door pushed open, and Brennan's finger fell to the trigger.

A plate clattered to the ground with a loud clash, jolting Dosha enough to send her scrambling. Diggs crouched in the tunnel, hands up at sight of the gun, eyes wide.

"Don't shoot."

Dosha trotted to the foot of the tunnel, where the plate had fallen. A dozen neatly quartered sandwiches now lay on the ground; the dog immediately set to gobbling up every one of them. Brennan's heart pounded in her ears as she lowered the gun.

"What are you doing? Everyone is supposed to be in their rooms."

He dropped into the room and gently pushed Dosha aside, picking up the remaining sandwiches before they were all devoured. Brennan put her gun away and came out from behind the table.

"I _was _in my room – or I was in Erin's room, anyway. But it got a little… crowded." A frown touched his lips at an obviously unpleasant memory. "I went down to the kitchen to give her some space, and Zoe said maybe you guys could use a snack. I think she just wanted me out of her hair, personally."

He looked around the small space. "Where is everyone?"

Brennan went to the false wall and rapped sharply: three fast knocks, three slow. Two or three minutes passed before the wall shifted before her eyes, and Tripp reappeared cautiously. He waited until he'd gotten word from Brennan before confirming for the others that they were clear to return.

Obviously, the intrusion was a welcome one as far as the others were concerned - Sophie and the boys all grinned widely at sight of Diggs and went straight to him, eagerly helping themselves to the food he had brought. Brennan and Tripp righted the table once more, set it with the remaining sandwiches and cookies, and Tripp got out a deck of cards he'd brought with them.

Once they were all seated around the table with cookies and the small portion of sandwiches they'd salvaged from the floor, Tripp dealt eight cards to each of them. Brennan noticed that Sophie went to a great deal of trouble to sit beside Diggs –and that, based on the way Diggs kept moving his chair farther away, the handsome reporter was not pleased with the teenager's attention.

"So, Diggs," Tripp said, sometime midway through their first hand of Crazy Eights. "How'd you hear about this room again?"

"Mosby called," he explained. Brennan already knew this detail, however; she was curious why Tripp had brought it up.

"The caretaker, correct?" Brennan said. "I thought he was supposed to be at dinner last night."

Diggs shrugged. He lay down a card and picked up another one, frowning as he added it to his hand. "Mosby's a conundrum - he comes and goes as he pleases, mostly."

"And Mosby and Zoe – they were the only ones who knew about the skeleton being down here?" Tripp asked.

Diggs started to nod, casually chewing on a cookie, seemingly distracted by the cards in his hand. After a moment, a look of understanding crossed his face. He met Tripp's eye.

"That's what they thought," Diggs said. "You're telling me somebody else knew about it?"

Tripp and Brennan looked meaningfully at the boys, who both squirmed at the attention.

"We just followed him down here that one time," Will said.

"Followed your father, you mean," Diggs said.

Sam nodded.

"So, what exactly did your dad _do _while he was down here?" Tripp asked.

Brennan looked at the boy, curious about the answer herself.

"He just looked at the skeleton. And there was a book in that secret compartment in the wall – he read that. Then, he measured the bones and wrote some stuff down."

"Then he went out the secret way, " Will added. "That's how we knew about it."

"Do you mean he wrote in the book that was hidden in the wall?" Brennan asked. She noticed that Sophie had become very quiet.

"No," Sam answered, with a shake of his head. "He had a notebook for that stuff. The book in the wall was old – really old. And big. He didn't write in that. Just read it, and copied some stuff down in his notebook."

Brennan exchanged a glance with Tripp and Diggs.

"Do you know what happened to either of these books?" she asked. "The old one, and your father's notebook?"

Brennan's heart sank when they both shook their heads. She noticed that Diggs did not seem discouraged, however. He turned his attention to Sophie.

"But you know, don't you? You know where Paul hid those books."

Sophie's jaw hardened. Once again, Brennan had to remind herself that this was an adolescent of only sixteen years. These were not the types of issues sixteen-year-olds were equipped to handle well.

"He'll kill me if I tell," she said. She looked at Sam and Will, her eyes pleading. "You guys know he will. You know him."

Sam's gaze darkened at her words. He turned on the adults in the room. "Leave her alone," he said. A hush fell over the table. "She doesn't have to tell you anything. It'll just get her in more trouble."

"Sophie, we can protect – " Tripp began.

"No, you can't!" Sam interrupted. "Stop saying that! I believed you the first time, and look where we are. We're stuck here, hiding out in some creepy secret room where they used to eat people, just waiting for my dad to show up. I was dumb to believe Agent Booth. You can't make her tell you anything."

Tripp started to object, but Brennan interrupted him with a gesture. With some effort, she shut out everyone else in the room, focusing instead on Sam – on this boy with whom Booth seemed to have so much in common.

"You're right. We can tell you that we'll try to keep you safe, and we can even mean it – and we do, very much. But there are no guarantees, particularly not now that your father has escaped. But I know that my partner cares about you – both you and your brother, and I know that when Booth cares about someone, he'll do everything he can to protect them. But you have to help him. The more you tell us now, the better able we'll be to keep your father away from you for a very long time."

Sam looked at her, his jaw still tilted stubbornly, though Brennan thought she saw him weakening slightly.

"You think whatever was in that notebook will help you keep him in jail?" Sophie asked, her voice small.

Brennan shifted her focus to the girl. Sophie was sitting with her knees up to her chest now, her arms wrapped around them. Sixteen years old. Hooked on methamphetamines, kidnapped by Paul Lindley, playing mother to two boys she was just a few years older than while she played wife to a man far too old to be playing such games with a child.

Brennan felt a surge of anger – at the circumstances but more specifically at Paul Lindley, for the indelible damage he had wrought on the children at this table. She forced herself to keep that feeling at bay a bit longer, however, and attempted a smile at Sophie.

She nodded seriously.

"The notebook could be the evidence we'll need to prove that Paul knew that the skeleton was here, and that he had something to do with its theft – and, possibly, with something more." She thought of the blood traces on the wall in the hallway, the gunshot, the signs of someone being held captive in that room on the second floor.

Sophie took a deep breath. She looked at Sam. It seemed to Brennan that a silent conversation passed between the two, before the girl finally nodded.

"I'll show you when we get out. He didn't have a chance to move it before Agent Booth arrested him. It's right where he left it."

Brennan gave her a warm smile. "Thank you. That could be very helpful."

Sophie merely turned her head away, however, her eyes swimming with tears.

Diggs and Tripp saved the rest of the afternoon by keeping everyone thoroughly entertained with card games, magic tricks, and outlandish stories that Brennan was a little alarmed to think were actually true. By the time Brennan heard their secret knock at the tunnel entrance later in the day, she had nearly forgotten they had been in hiding in the first place.

Booth opened the door and peered in, taking in the scene with a relieved – albeit slightly amused – smile.

"If I'd known you guys were living the high life down here, I would've come back a lot sooner," he said.

She didn't miss the look of concern that flashed between Sophie and the boys.

"Did you find our dad?" Sam asked.

Booth shook his head. He dropped down into the room, cast an inquiring eye at Diggs, and answered the question before asking his own.

"Not yet, guys, but I told you – you don't need to worry. We've got it covered. So, what – Tripp wasn't enough to keep everybody happy? You had to order in?"

"Diggs brought refreshments," Brennan explained. She chose to leave it at that, far more interested in what Booth's afternoon had held. "If you were unable to find Lindley, does that mean we'll need to stay here longer?"

"I've gotta go to the bathroom," Will interrupted. He had been saying this for the past half-hour; Brennan had no doubt that things were getting uncomfortable for the boy.

"We're gonna let you guys out of here," Booth said, "and we'll just keep a close eye on everybody."

He gave Will a boost into the tunnel, followed by Sam and Sophie, before he turned to Brennan and Tripp. Diggs stood off to the side, seeming to sense he was not welcome in the conversation.

"The constable thinks Lindley stole his boat and now he's on the run. Me and Cam just got word from one of the locals who said they spotted the boat off the south shore."

Tripp looked skeptical. "You really think he'd just go?"

"It seems unlikely," Brennan agreed. "Particularly considering his pattern with the boys in the past."

"Yeah, I tend to think you're right, but I can't say for sure," Booth said. He glanced back at the tunnel. "We better get going."

Diggs went out next, followed by Tripp, while Booth and Brennan brought up the rear. Before they made their way once more back into the basement, Brennan touched Booth's arm.

"We can't let Paul Lindley near those children again," she said. She was surprised to hear her voice shake at the intensity of her feelings.

Booth studied her for a moment. "Did something happen while I was gone, Bones?"

She thought of Sophie's tears, Sam's outburst. Will's stubborn silence. It seemed like far too much to fit into a perfunctory explanation – particularly when there were others waiting for them. She just shook her head, kissing him quickly on the lips.

"I'll tell you about it later. Now, I just want to do everything we can to ensure everyone stays safe."

Booth nodded. He ran a hand through her hair, still regarding her thoughtfully. "That's my plan, Bones. I just hope Lindley doesn't do too much damage when he decides he doesn't like it."

Brennan agreed wholeheartedly.

Once they had rejoined the others in the basement, Booth escorted the boys up the stairs and out to the restroom, while the rest of their group returned to the dining room. Brennan glanced at the clock. It was nearly six. Zoe was in the kitchen cooking again, and the dining room was beginning to fill.

Apparently, it took more than the threat of a known, violent criminal on the loose to keep everyone from their appointed mealtimes.

Brennan was surprised to find that, among the others in the dining room – including Angela, Sweets, and Cam – Zack and Hodgins were also in attendance. Cam stood when she saw Tripp, a look of relief crossing her face.

"So you survived," she said. Affection laced her words. Tripp nodded solemnly.

"Did you really have any doubt? And I was a big help, too – just ask Brennan."

"A very big help," Brennan agreed. "He's a very good card player. And I had no idea he trapped tigers in Bangalore."

Cam quirked an eyebrow, and Tripp blushed slightly. "You don't know _everything _about me, you know."

"Apparently not."

"Anyway, between the cards and the cookies, it was a brutal detail," he said. Brennan watched with some amusement as he leaned in to Cam, his hand at her elbow. "I'll probably need a rubdown later," he said softly.

Brennan decided it was probably best to let the couple pursue the conversation on their own at that point. That decision was reinforced by the sight of Hodgins, quite obviously trying to get her attention.

"What is it?" she asked.

He and Zack bodily dragged her to the corner of the room.

"What is the matter with you two?"

Hodgins pressed his lips together, his brow furrowed. "Where's Booth?" he asked.

"He took the boys to the restroom."

Zack looked physically pained. "We may have a problem."

Hodgins glared at him. "_May? _We _may _have a problem?"

"I'm merely trying to remain rational."

"Oh, yeah – that's rich. You're calling _me _irrational?"

The men squared off. Brennan stepped between them. "Would you please tell me what the problem _is_?"

Hodgins laughed, though the laugh came out sounding somewhat hysterical. "It's not like we did it on purpose, all right? That's the first thing I think Booth should keep in mind, when we tell him."

"When you tell Booth _what?_" came a voice from behind them. Both men jumped as Booth inserted himself into the conversation.

"Holy _God_, you scared me," Hodgins said, his voice shaky.

"When Booth finds out _what?_" Booth repeated.

Both Zack and Hodgins spoke at once, just far enough apart that Brennan got the gist of both of their concerns. First, Zack – his words rushed, worry etched on his face.

"I can't find Greta."

And then Hodgins, his own anxiety clearly tied more to self-preservation. "The Gormogon skeleton's gone again."

She looked at Booth, who appeared on the verge of braining both of them.

Clearly, the evening would not be a peaceful one.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**_And here it is... After months and months and months of waiting, the next installment of Apprentice on the Island. There had been the hope that this would be accompanied with another issue of my online fanfiction journal, but alas that's just not happenin'. I am, however, back on schedule with posting this, and will be able to get the next chapter up next Sunday and a new installment on through to the end. You may need to go back through to refresh your memories, but I'll give you a quick primer to make it simpler: _**

**_Booth and Bones and the rest of the gang are out on Monhegan Island, Maine, after a Gormogon skeleton was found out there. Heading into this chapter, the Gormogon skeleton has once more disappeared; Angela is super-pregnant, Zack is helping out on the case (with his possibly-psychotic girlfriend, Greta Garbo, who has also just disappeared). Will and Sam are the boys Booth and Bones helped way back in War in the Woods, and now they're at the same hotel everyone else is staying at, while their abusive father Paul has just escaped the island jail and may or may not be involved in the Gormogon conspiracy. Daniel/Diggs and Erin Solomon are old friends of Angela's; they're both reporters, and Erin has been acting strangely and Booth knows that at least part of that reason is that she's secretly pregnant. And... Hopefully that's all the refreshing you need. Hope you enjoy!  
><em>**

_Chapter Fourteen_

"What do you mean, the skeleton's gone?" Booth demanded, once he'd recovered from the bomb Hodgins and Zack had just dropped. He was standing in the dining room with Will and Sam beside him, watching every move he made... He did his best to get himself under control, if for no other reason than that.

Hodgins looked sorry as hell. "We went up there because it was our shift… But then that old guy at the end of the hall – what's his name?"

"Mr. Tolliver," Zack said.

"Yeah, Tolliver – he wanted our help. So, we figured… I mean, seriously, who the hell is gonna take the friggin' thing again?"

"How long were you with the old guy?" Booth asked.

"Ten minutes, tops," Hodgins said. "He wanted to know what was going on with the case and then he started talking about JFK – he has some _really _interesting theories, by the way – "

Booth did his best not to squash the squint where he stood.

"Which is totally not the point right now," Hodgins finished.

"And this was how many hours ago that this happened?" Booth asked. He took a step toward Hodgins; Hodgins took a step back.

"It was immediately after you left," Zack said.

"So you've known this thing was gone for _three _hours – and you're just telling us about it now?"

"You told us all to stay put," Hodgins said. "And there's no cell reception out here, so it's not like we could've called."

"I think we should focus on the more critical component of this equation," Zack interrupted. "Which is that my girlfriend has gone missing and there is a homicidal maniac on the loose."

"Your girlfriend could _be _the homicidal maniac for all we know," Hodgins said.

Booth had never seen Zack madder – he might've found it a little funny, if he wasn't so freaked out himself. "She is not a homicidal maniac. I would never say something like that about Angela."

"Yeah, but I didn't meet Angela because she kept breaking into a funny farm so she could get cozy with a serial killer."

Zack took a step closer to Hodgins like he was about to knock him sideways, but Booth got in between them and snagged Zack by the collar.

"All right – just back off, both of you. Now, Zack…"

Zack glared at Hodgins for another few seconds before he met Booth's eye.

"Yes," he said. He still looked pretty pissed, though.

"When was the last time you saw Ingrid?" Booth asked.

Zack looked at him blankly.

"Greta," Bones corrected him.

"Ingrid, Greta – whatever. When'd you see her last?"

"We had sex at one-twenty," Zack said.

Booth winced. "Well, great – thanks for that. And you were in your room, or hers?"

"My room. She doesn't like her room. She says the energy is bad there."

Bones tapped his arm. He looked over his shoulder, but he was still trying to keep Zack and Hodgins from going at it so he couldn't exactly give her his full attention.

"Yeah, Bones?"

"Like your room – when you believed you were being haunted."

"I didn't believe I was being haunted."

She gave him one of those, 'You're full of shit' looks she was getting so good at, which he ignored. Instead, he focused on trying to solve the damned case.

"So, neither of you guys saw the skeleton at all. It wasn't there when you finally reported for duty?"

Hodgins shook his head. "No, man – it was gone. No trace. I checked the floor, looking for particles, a hair, anything…"

"Did Greta know you were supposed to be on duty next?" Booth asked Zack.

The squint hesitated a second or two too long, giving away the answer.

"She would have had twenty minutes," Bones said, "from the time we all left the skeleton alone, and the time it took for Zack and Hodgins to meet with Mr. Tolliver before reporting for duty."

"There's no way Greta could have carried the skeleton from that room alone," Zack argued. "If she had anything to do with it. Which I do not believe."

Booth felt a headache coming on. The dining room was full by now, and whatever Zoe had cooked up for dinner smelled incredible. Of course, at this point it didn't seem all that likely that he'd have a chance to sit down and eat anytime soon.

"Can somebody please explain to me why a stowaway from the nuthouse was the only one watching this thing?"

"She wasn't watching it," Zack said. "She was getting some clothes – she'd left some of her things behind in our room."

"And then this guy asked you to help him with…?"

"Moving this old trunk," Hodgins supplied. Of course.

"None of this seems at all pertinent to the real question," Bones interrupted. "That being, Where is the skeleton now?"

"Yeah, you're right," Booth agreed. He crouched down to talk to Sam and Will, still standing beside him looking tense as hell. "Listen, guys, I'm gonna have Tripp and the rest of the gang keep an eye on you for a while. I don't think your dad's coming back tonight."

Neither of them looked like they believed that for a second, but Sam nodded all the same. Booth led the boys over to the table and explained what he wanted Tripp and Cam to do in a hushed voice. The missing skeleton was another crimp in his plans, but until the storm cleared his choices were seriously limited.

It was just after six o'clock, the sky dark and the wind gusting outside. Any way you sliced it, it was gonna be a long night. Once he'd filled Tripp and Cam in, he pulled Bones aside.

"Listen, I think we need a new plan."

"I agree," Bones said. "If Paul Lindley is loose, he'll most likely return for his sons at some point tonight. And if he has anything to do with the Gormogon skeleton, he may have had an accomplice working from inside the hotel to secure it until he could kill two birds with one rock by getting both the skeleton and the boys…"

"My thoughts exactly, Bones." He gave her a little grin. "You see how great minds think alike?"

"It's simple deductive reasoning, Booth – and if there is only one correct answer, it stands to reason that anyone with a modicum of intelligence would reach the same conclusion."

He raised his eyebrows at her, and she blushed a little.

"But of course that wasn't really your point."

"Not really," he agreed. "But here's what this great mind is thinking now…" He looked around the room, taking in the guests scattered at different tables, Zoe and her crew setting out dinner. It was hardly perfect, but it would have to do.

"We're gonna have a slumber party tonight," he said. Bones' forehead wrinkled in that way it did when she had no idea what he was talking about.

"Everybody's gonna bunk down here," he explained. "I've got a killer – at least one, maybe more – loose on this island, and no way to get help in here 'til at least tomorrow. The only way I can be sure everybody is safe, present, and accounted for, is if we all just set up camp down here. We'll bring in some mattresses, there's plenty of space and plenty of food. Unless you've got a better idea?"

She gave it a little thought before she shook her head. "No. I suppose given our lack of resources and the number of potential victims Lindley could claim should he return, this does make the most sense."

He was afraid of that.

* * *

><p>After he and Bones went to talk to Zoe about how they were gonna work Booth's plan, he went upstairs with Bones to check out the old man's story and try to figure out how the two Wonder Squints could have possibly lost a whole damned skeleton in ten minutes flat.<p>

They stopped in the room where the skeleton had been, first. Sure enough, it was gone, lock, stock, and silver femurs. Bones searched the room – under the bed, in the closet, behind the bureau – like she expected it to just pop up any second now. It didn't.

Booth scanned the spot where the skeleton had mysteriously appeared just that morning.

"Hey, Bones."

She looked up from searching behind the headboard for God only knew what. "Yes?"

He nodded toward the floor. "These weren't here before, were they?"

She came over and crouched beside the spot where he was pointing. "Scuff marks. No – there were none before. That was one of the reasons we'd decided the skeleton must have been carried in."

"But it got dragged out."

He and Bones started following the faint marks on the floor. Instead of leading toward the door, they led in the opposite direction – straight to the back wall. Bones slid her hand along the wall, while Booth tried pushing at strategic spots. They'd been at it for a good five minutes before Bones thought to move one of the creepy shipwreck paintings. Booth pushed against the wall at the same time.

Another twenty seconds of pushing and pulling, trying to find the right combination, and voila…

A huge section of wall just slid backward, like nothing at all. Booth sprang back.

"Afraid your ghost might be hiding in there?" Bones said, with a smartass grin.

"That's funny, Bones. You're a damn riot."

"I find myself quite humorous," she agreed. Before he could be too annoyed, she leaned over and kissed him sweetly on the cheek. "Don't worry. If any type of apparition should appear – which is highly unlikely – I'll protect you."

Then, without so much as a backward glance, she headed into the secret room. Booth followed along, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

The room was barely 10x15 feet, with nothing but a bare wood floor and bare wood walls. There was no skeleton that he could see, and there was definitely no Greta Garbo. Bones shined her flashlight along the wall, while Booth did the same.

"There's another passage here," she whispered from the other side of the room. She laughed at herself. "Though it's irrational, I do have to admit to feeling slightly uneasy in this place."

Booth grinned, pleased at the admission. "Don't worry, Bones, I'll save you from the ooglie booglies when they come for you."

This earned an eye roll that he could just make out in the glow of his flashlight, before Bones ducked into a narrow passage leading them deeper into the belly of the house. The longer this case wore on, the more Booth was thinking he'd never willingly set foot on a Maine island again.

"There are stairs," Bones called from somewhere ahead of him.

"Hold up, would you?" he called. When he finally caught up to her at the bottom of the stairs, he grabbed hold of her wrist in the narrow passageway before she could go any further.

"Bones," he said. His tone of voice must have made an impression, because she stopped moving and turned to look at him.

The space was just barely wide enough for two people, and they both had to stay hunched over because of the low ceilings. Now that they were on the ground floor, Booth figured they had to be just outside the dining room – he could hear the sound of kids laughing somewhere close by. At least he hoped to God it was coming from the dining room.

"Let me take the lead for a little while, huh?" he asked. He held up his gun to show her _why _he wanted to take the lead. To his surprise, she nodded and stepped aside.

Of course, she wouldn't be Bones if she wasn't practically climbing up his ass once they started out again. He stopped suddenly, and she crashed into him.

"Bones."

"You're going too slowly."

"We've done this before – what's the rule?"

He turned to look at her. She glared at him. "It hardly applies – "

"What's the rule, Bones?" he pressed. She scowled. Even now, stuck in a secret passage running after ghosts and skeletons, he couldn't get over how damn cute she was when she was pissed at him. He raised his eyebrows and made himself comfortable by leaning against the wall. This could take a while.

"Five paces," she said finally.

"Five paces what?"

God, she was fun to annoy. She got her pissy little glare going, narrowing her eyes at him. "Five paces between you and I when we're in pursuit, so that you have space to breathe."

"Thank you. Now back the hell up, Bones."

"We're not pursuing something."

"Same rule applies."

"Well, you never specified that."

"What do I have to do, write it all out? Back up, Bones."

She did so, but she definitely wasn't happy about it. There was no doubt in his mind that he'd be paying for this later. They continued on.

After about ten minutes of prowling around in the walls, they finally came to another door. Booth looked over his shoulder to find Bones maybe three paces back, waiting expectantly. He opened the door.

They found themselves in a nice enough, simple boarding room with wood walls, a mattress on the floor, and shelves built into the corner.

"This is one of the rooms for the summer help," Bones told him as she crossed the threshold. Both she and Booth stretched, grateful to be able to stand tall again.

A couple of windows looked out onto a snowy deck and a snowier world.

"It doesn't look as though anyone's stayed here in some time," Bones noted.

"Somebody passed through, though," Booth said. He pointed to more scuff marks on the floor leading from the passageway to the front door.

When he opened the door, ducking against the strong wind and driving snow, Bones trained her flashlight beam on the ground. Booth could just make out footprints on the deck that led to tire tracks at the foot of the steps.

"She must've had a four wheeler waiting," he said.

He and Bones stood together in the freezing cold, staring at the remnants of the tire tracks leading into the woods.

"She?" Bones asked.

"Greta Garbo."

She frowned at that. "Zack doesn't believe she's involved."

"Yeah, well, Zack's not thinking with the right head."

She snickered once she realized what he meant. "Zack's always been very logical. Of course, once the production of dopamine starts in earnest, it can affect rational thought patterns. I can certainly attest to that."

"I don't know whether I'm supposed to be flattered or insulted." He came to suddenly, realizing where they were. "C'mon, Bones, you're shivering. We're not gonna catch anybody in this weather – let's get you inside."

Instead of going back through the creepy passage, he and Bones trudged through the snow to the inn's front door. It wasn't late, but the island was pitch black, lit only by the snow falling all around them. Booth wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close once they were inside.

"We should get you out of these wet clothes," he murmured in her ear. She just gave him a look.

"We have a dining room full of hotel guests to keep safe all night. I sincerely doubt getting either of us out of anything will be on the agenda for at least the next twenty-four hours."

He hated it when she got logical on him.

* * *

><p>When they returned to the dining hall, it was to mass confusion with a side of hysteria, just to make things <em>really <em>interesting. The rest of the team had gathered all the hotel guests, just like Booth had asked. What he hadn't counted on was just how many hotel guests there actually were.

Kids were running around, parents were yelling, squints were panicking trying to get a handle on the situation… Booth took a deep breath and let it out, nice and slow. Zack had spotted Bones and was making a beeline straight for them, while a baby in the corner cried and a frazzled dad yelled at two little girls playing tag in the middle of all the chaos. Booth put his pinky fingers in his mouth and let out a long, shrill whistle.

Everybody fell silent.

"By now, I'm sure you know we've got some issues at the hotel this weekend," he said, once he had everyone's attention.

That got everyone talking again in no time. Booth held up his hand.

"Folks! Look, I know this isn't the way any of us wants to spend the night, but we're just gonna have to make the best of it. Zoe's got plenty of good food, we'll bring in some bunks, play some games and before you know it, it'll be morning."

"Why can't we go back to our rooms?" a woman asked him – one of the moms, though he couldn't remember whose exactly.

"Because until further notice, it's not safe to go back to your rooms," he said, opting for honesty. "If you do as I say, though, I promise you that everything'll be just fine. We'll stay here together, and that way we can keep an eye out. Safety in numbers, right? If you need to use the bathroom, you'll go in shifts. Nobody leaves this room alone."

A few people started to put up a fuss, but they gave up once they realized Booth wasn't budging on this. The team – Zack, Hodgins, Angela, Sweets, Tripp, and Cam, with Daniel tagging along for good measure – joined him and Bones, while everybody else started making themselves comfortable.

"So, you really think this is necessary?" Cam asked.

"I don't know. But I'm not willing to risk it with this many civilians' lives on the line," Booth said.

"How do you want to run this tonight, then?" Tripp asked.

Booth looked around the circle. "We'll post two guards in shifts 'til morning, protecting both entrances into the dining hall. Me and Bones can take the first shift. Tripp, you and Cam'll take second shift." He hesitated. "Daniel, you ever shot a gun before?"

The reporter nodded. "Yeah – I did an investigative piece back a few years ago, working with the cops. I've kept up my license since."

"Good. You and Sweets can take third shift, then me and Bones'll be up again."

"I can help, too," Zack said. Booth just gave him a look.

Hodgins started to say something, but shut up when Angela touched his arm.

"All right, so we've got that covered." Booth said. He looked at Angela. She wasn't looking great – a little nervous, a little tired. A lot pregnant. "Listen, I want you and Hodgins to lay low for a while, okay? Get some food, grab a nap, lock yourselves in your room…"

"But I thought it wasn't safe in our rooms," she said.

"If you keep the door locked, you'll be okay. There's no way you should be sleeping down here with everything so nuts." He smiled at her. "Besides, you've gotta keep my godson safe, right? That little guy needs his rest."

She didn't look completely sold, but after a few seconds she did nod. Her fingers tightened around Hodgins' hand.

"It'll be all right, baby," Hodgins said quietly.

The couple made a quick exit, thankfully getting out before any of the other guests noticed they were going. Now, Booth did a cursory search of the room to try and figure out if this really was everyone. It didn't take long before he realized it wasn't.

"Where's Erin?" he asked Daniel.

The man shook his head. A look that seemed like two parts concern and one part annoyed as hell crossed his face – Booth recognized it as one he'd worn more than a couple of times thanks to Bones. "She won't come down. I don't know what's going on with her… I think she might be sick."

That was just great.

"What about the notebooks Sophie said she had – was anybody able to get those?"

Sweets tapped a thick black ledger Booth hadn't even noticed he was carrying under his arm. "Right here. It's actually really interesting – in a creepy, macabre kind of way."

That got Bones' attention. She took the ledger and settled in at the nearest dining room table for what Booth figured was probably the long haul. Meanwhile, Booth decided it was high time to have a heart to heart with the only one in the whole damned hotel who refused to play by the rules.

He went upstairs to talk to Erin.

* * *

><p>It took a good five minutes before Erin finally answered her door. If her dog hadn't been barking inside the room, Booth might have given up. By the time she finally opened up, he was debating whether or not Zoe would kick his ass if he broke down the door.<p>

"What do you want?"

Erin opened the door just enough to peer out, but Booth could tell just from that little bit that something was wrong. Her already pale complexion was stark white, deep shadows under her eyes. He put his foot in the door before she could slam it in his face.

"You didn't come down for dinner. I figured I'd bring something up." He nodded to a brown paper bag with a monster turkey sandwich Zoe had packed for him.

"I'm not hungry, but thanks. I'll get something later."

He pushed the bag toward her anyway. "Just take it. You're in the second trimester – you can't just not eat."

The comment did exactly what he'd hoped; Erin glanced down the hallway like he'd screamed the words, then pulled him into the room.

"What the hell's wrong with you? I told you, nobody knows about that."

Einstein squirmed and shimmied while Booth said a quick hello, all the while taking in the room. It was roasting thanks to a blazing fire in the fireplace, but Erin still wore about six layers. Her laptop was on the bed with a bunch of files and what looked like crime scene photos. Before he could see what they were exactly, Erin swept them back into a folder and stuffed them in her briefcase.

"Working on a story?" he asked.

"Yeah." She was a better liar than Bones, but not by much. "I've got a deadline, so I'm putting in a lot of hours."

"So many there's no time for dinner."

She shrugged, a little hint of defiance in her eyes now. "You know how it is."

"Sure." Booth found himself stuck on how thin she was – even under all those layers, he could see bones where he should have seen at least the beginnings of a baby bump. The sight bothered him more than it should have, for a woman he didn't know and would probably never lay eyes on again after they got off this damned island.

"It's still snowing," he said, when a few seconds had passed and she'd made no effort to fill the silence.

"Yeah, I see that," she said. Not snotty like he might have expected – mostly just tired. "Diggs says it won't let up for at least tonight. Now I remember why I left this place." She looked out the window. Booth got the feeling she wasn't really seeing the snow, though; it felt like she was a million miles away.

He sat down at her desk. It occurred to him that maybe Bones wouldn't be wild about him alone in a room with a pretty woman. Except Bones didn't get jealous… Well, Bones _said _she didn't get jealous. He dismissed the thought. Right now, he was doing his job – that was it. If nothing else, Bones would get that.

"I can't picture you growing up around here," he said. "You seem more like a city girl."

"Fifteen years in Boston'll do that to you."

Silence fell once more. She glanced at her briefcase with all the files in it, then back at Booth.

"Was there something else you wanted?"

"Not really. I just figured you could eat your sandwich, and I could ask a few questions. I'm curious about a few things with the Monhegan House. I thought maybe you'd know."

That much was true – Daniel had mentioned earlier that Erin was an expert on the subject, and with all these secret passages popping up, it might be nice to get a little background.

He opened the paper bag she still hadn't taken and handed her half a turkey sandwich, keeping the other half for himself. Her eyes hardened.

"Ah – so that's what this is," she said. She didn't take the sandwich, glaring at him. He didn't say anything, since he didn't know what the hell she was talking about. "You're one of those knights-in-shining-armor guys. And now you think you've found a maiden in need of saving. Spare me – I get plenty of that from Diggs."

"Yeah, he's doing a hell of a job keeping you safe," Booth bit out before he could stop himself. "Where was he while you were puking your guts out at the dock? He doesn't even know you're having his kid, for Christ's sake."

Her eyes widened. For just a second, Booth thought she might be about to slug him.

"Excuse me?"

"I – uh – "

"You bet your ass, 'I - uh…' I'm married. Or did you not notice the ring? And unless God really does work in mysterious ways, my _husband _is the father."

Booth took a second to recover from that. He knew he should go – every goddamn part of him told him he should go. But there was something about her that he couldn't turn his back on. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Erin Solomon was in way over her head with something.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I was out of line."

"Ya think?"

He held up his hands in surrender. "Okay – so, I was wrong. Maybe we could just forget it. Start over."

Again, he tried handing her the damned sandwich. This time, she took it – though grudgingly. She sat on the bed, her knees to her chest. Just like she had the day before, she suddenly reminded Booth of somebody much younger.

"So, do you torture all the pregnant women you meet?" she asked between bites, "Or am I special?"

"Nah, it's a thing I do. Ask Angela."

"I will. Now – you said you had questions about Monhegan House. Or were you just making that up?"

"No, it's true. Daniel said you'd done a lot of research while you were staying out here that summer with Angela. You remember any of it?"

He was pleased to note she'd already wolfed down the first half of her sandwich. He handed her the other half, but she set it aside and came over to get her laptop from the desk. When she did so, she brushed against his arm. Booth moved out of the way like he'd been burned.

"Easy there, Champ," she said with a little grin. "We're all grown ups here. Besides, I don't get in the way of true love. Just relax."

She took the laptop back to the bed and settled in, curling up with her legs tucked under her this time. Her hand rested lightly on her stomach again, in that absent way women do when they're pregnant.

"True love?" Booth asked.

She blushed, just a shade. With a little color, he was struck once again by just how pretty she was.

"You and the bone lady. The way you look at her..." She shrugged, the blush deepening. "It's nice – and way too rare these days. I wouldn't fuck with that if you paid me."

Good to know. Booth felt himself relax just a little. There wasn't a question in his mind that she meant it.

"So… the Monhegan House," he prompted, getting them both back on track.

"Right. I did a story a while ago on Monhegan during Prohibition, on up through World War II. There were some pretty heavy hitters who were rumored to have visited."

"Why rumored? You couldn't get confirmation that they summered in Maine? No offense, but it doesn't exactly sound like Watergate."

She shot him a little glare before she returned her attention to her computer. "That's what I thought, too." She turned her laptop around and pushed it toward the edge of the bed. Booth scooted his chair over to read what she'd pulled up.

"Charlie Gilroy. Mansell James. Charles Nungesser. Paula Welden. David Webster…" He looked up, starting to get excited. "You're serious? These are some of the most famous disappearances in the past hundred years."

She looked a little smug. "I know, right? Pretty cool. And from the records I could find and a few interviews I did, every one of them came to Monhegan secretly within a month of their disappearances."

"Whoa. Bones is gonna love this."

She smiled. "Glad I could help. I can print off a copy if you – " She went ghost white suddenly. A second later, she was off the bed and bolting for the toilet.

She was in too much of a hurry to shut the bathroom door. Booth waited a couple minutes, listening to her retch, before he went and stood in the doorway awkwardly. She knelt on the tile floor, her shoulders slumped, hanging onto the toilet seat like it was her only anchor.

He got a washcloth and wet it in the sink. Erin took it from him without a word, then leaned back against the wall, her eyes closed. Her hand rested on her stomach again.

"Fuckin' kid," she said softly.

Booth sat down on the other side of the small bathroom, waiting for her to say anything more.

"Were you around when your ex was pregnant with your son?" she asked. She opened one eye to look at him, her head tipped back against the wall – like moving it would take too much effort.

"Yeah," he said. "For parts of it, anyway."

"Was she sick a lot?"

Booth thought about it. Or not _it, _really – he knew the answer. Mostly, he was just trying to figure out what to tell Erin.

"She was pretty sick, yeah."

She opened both eyes and smiled at him. "You're a shitty liar."

He flushed, a little. "Yeah – all right. She had a pretty good pregnancy. A little nausea the first trimester, but otherwise things were good. We were lucky."

"Yeah. I'll say."

"Rebecca took better care of herself, though."

She didn't look at him. It seemed like she was waiting for him to say something else – he just wasn't sure what.

"She wanted the baby, then?" she asked. She was quiet again.

"Yeah," he said honestly. "We both wanted him. He was the best thing that ever happened to both of us… That's the way it is when a kid comes along."

Her eyes drifted shut. For a second, Booth thought she'd fallen asleep.

"You don't think your husband would be excited?" he asked. "'Cause just about every guy I know might think at first – "

"No," she interrupted him. "Michael would be happy. Will be. He'll be over the moon."

"So, if you don't mind me asking, why the hell aren't you telling him? Or, you know, _somebody. _This guy Daniel seems like a good friend. You can't tell him?"

"I'll tell them. I'll tell everybody, when it's time. I've got other things on my mind right now."

She hauled herself up off the floor before he could ask anything else, rinsed her mouth out, and went straight back to her computer. Booth went to the window and looked out at a world of white, no end that he could see. Erin printed off a copy of her article and handed it to him, then went to the door.

"I don't want to be rude, but I should get back to work."

"Yeah. About that… Everybody's actually spending the night downstairs tonight."

Just the look in her eye was enough to tell him there was no way in hell that was happening. He hedged.

"If I say you can stay up here, you've gotta keep the door locked. Let Daniel walk the dog. Keep a low profile."

Apparently, she sensed that she was getting off easy, because she didn't argue.

"I will."

He stood at the threshold for a second, unwilling to leave just yet.

"I'm okay, Seeley," she said.

She really was a terrible liar. Still, he nodded. "Yeah – okay. I'm gonna send Daniel up to check on you in an hour, and I want you to let him in. Got it?"

"Got it."

He turned around and walked away, but he couldn't get over the feeling that he was making a mistake by leaving her.

_TBC_

* * *

><p><em><strong>And that, my friends, is the end for this week. Hit that pretty button below and let me know what you think, and I'd love to hear your thoughts about Erin, as she and Diggs are actually the main characters in the novel I'll be publishing this spring. Like 'em? Hate 'em? Monumentally ambivalent? Any thoughts are welcome. And next chapter, I promise, will have more BB - and will wander a bit more into the 'M' territory we all love so much. See you then!**_


	16. Chapter Fifteen

__**_First big announcement: My novel, All the Blue-Eyed Angels, is out and getting great reviews! Solomon and Diggs, featured in this story, are the main characters. If you haven't gotten it already, you can buy the e-book at Amazon or Smashwords for $2.99. The print version will be out April 2nd. You can find out more by going to my website, www[dot]bloodwrites[dot]com. I've got super cool giveaways, including an upcoming Kindle Fire giveaway that I'll give more details about soon.  
><em>**

**_And now... Back to the fic. Believe it or not, we're actually on the home stretch for this little story, with only a few chapters to go. Just a quick note before you dive in: I had to change a couple of things with respect to my Solomon and Diggs characters - namely, the names. Anna Solomon is now Erin Solomon, and Daniel is pretty much Diggs to everyone he meets. It was a whole thing with the novel that will take too long to explain here, but... I've changed their names - just so you don't start reading and think you've lost your mind. And now, without further ado... I bring you Chapter 15. _**

_Chapter Fifteen_

After Booth went upstairs to deal with Erin – about whom Brennan was becoming slightly peevish – Brennan decided she should continue with the investigation to the best of her ability without her partner. Who was upstairs. With an attractive woman with whom he clearly had developed some kind of rapport.

About which Brennan was absolutely not jealous, because jealousy was a silly and utterly pointless emotion, and Dr. Temperance Brennan – who held multiple PhDs and had won prestigious awards and was, incidentally, a multi-millionaire with several bestselling novels under her belt – was obviously above such trite displays. Dammit.

Having (mostly) convinced herself of the validity of her argument, Brennan got back to the case at hand. She started with Mr. Tolliver, who was seated alone at a table in the far corner of the room. The dining room was teeming with activity by now, children shouting and people chattering while Zoe tried in vain to keep things under control.

Brennan took her plate to Tolliver's table and sat down, Dosha close on her heels.

"You're one of the lady cops trying to track down the living dead, aren't you?" the old man asked.

She recalled her encounter with Mr. Tolliver in his apartment the day before, when he had explained to she and Cam that he'd spotted a reanimated skeleton of pure silver attacking someone in the hallway. Cam had humored him, of course, but Brennan wasn't feeling quite so magnanimous.

"There's no such thing as the living dead, you know. It's an oxymoron. If something is dead than it cannot, by definition, also be living."

"Oh yeah? What about zombies – explain them."

"It's true that there have been phenomena in which an apparently dead body suddenly rose from the grave, however it was later discovered that those individuals thought to be deceased had actually been given a heavy dose of tetrodotoxin, which slows the heart to an almost indiscernible level."

Mr. Tolliver snorted at her. "Says you."

She frowned. Clearly, this wasn't the sort of argument it would make sense to continue. It did irk her, however, when someone was so obviously spouting misinformation. She decided it would be best to let it go for the moment. While trying to determine the best avenue to take, she tore off a corner piece from a slice of homemade bread and dipped it in a rich, delicious-smelling vegetable stew that Zoe had prepared.

"So, I guess you want to ask me about that girl now?" Tolliver prompted her.

"What girl?"

"The…" he made a gesture shaping his hands over his chest to indicate very large breasts. "… Girl. You know the one."

"Greta? You've seen her?"

"Not in a while, no," he said with a shake of his head. "But she came to see me earlier this afternoon. Said a couple of your scientist fellas were bothering her, and she asked if I'd mind distracting them for a while."

Brennan felt an unexpected pang of disappointment. She really had hoped Zack would be proven right in this.

"So, that's why you asked them to help you in your room? Because Greta asked you to?"

"A woman like that asks for a slice of the moon and you don't actually think twice, if you know what I mean. I didn't figure it'd be a problem, anyway."

"There really was no way you could have," Brennan conceded. "Still, before you go promising chunks of the moon to strange women – which I assume is merely hyperbole – you'd be well-advised to get all the facts first."

Tolliver nodded unhappily. "Yes, ma'am."

Brennan took in the man's thin frame and the empty table before him. "Have you had dinner?"

"Not hungry – all this activity makes me nervous."

"I know what you mean," she confessed. "You need to eat, however. Things will quiet down here before long."

To her relief, the old man agreed. She watched him shuffle to the buffet-style spread, where Zoe chatted with him at length as she served up a generous helping of stew.

Despite the hectic pace in the dining room, the community feel of the place appealed to Brennan. It was more reminiscent of a tribe in that respect than an inn. All of the adults seemed to take an interest in both the children and the elders, and the insular nature of the island itself no doubt contributed to that sense of unity and mutual support.

This led her to consider her own tribe – Booth and the other members of the Jeffersonian team. While traveling abroad, Brennan had had many opportunities to observe the activities of tribal communities; more than once, she had been accepted as a member of these communities. But, though she had immersed herself in their cultures and traditions, she had never truly felt a part of something larger before.

She glanced back at her table, where Tripp and Cam were talking animatedly while Hodgins had his ear pressed to Angela's very swollen stomach. Sweets, Zack, and Diggs were laughing about something, and Brennan noted that Sweets seemed more relaxed than she had seen him since the Hoover had been destroyed. Even Zack looked happy. As though he belonged.

Booth came into the dining room a moment later without Erin, looking serious until he caught sight of Brennan across the room. His frown gave way to a smile, his eyes brightening as they caught on hers. Her peevishness vanished almost instantly; she'd found over the past several months that staying angry with Booth for any significant length of time was very difficult.

She imagined suddenly what it would be like to return home to that smile at the end of a long day, every day for the rest of her life. Imagined Booth greeting their children, playing in the yard with Parker… Building a life together.

She was pleased when he threaded his way through the crowd to join her. Before he sat, he kissed her head, his hand lingering at the back of her neck.

"What was that for?" she asked.

"'Cause I love you, Bones," he said. He seemed very earnest about that.

"I love you too, Booth."

He sat and helped himself to a bit of the bread on her plate.

"So, Erin's not coming down, I take it?"

"She's not feeling all that well. I'm a little worried about her, to be honest."

Brennan felt that little stab of something that was absolutely not jealousy, once more. He caught the look, however, and had a difficult time hiding his smile.

"Nothing happened, you know."

"Of course not," she agreed. She did know, actually, that nothing had happened. This was Booth, the man who had told her years before that he'd never once cheated on a girlfriend before. She never had a reason to doubt the truth of that statement before; it made no sense to start now.

"So you're not upset?"

She gave him a look that was meant to convey how absurd that idea was, but she suspected it wasn't completely convincing. Rather than spending anymore time discussing the matter, she chose to return to his original topic.

"You said you're concerned about her. She's still not feeling well?"

He became serious again almost instantly. A few seconds passed while he considered her question before he spoke again. "You've always been consumed by your work – driven, I mean. Right, Bones?"

"I know that I can develop a singular focus when I'm working on something, yes."

"And that's why it's good you've got me around to remind you of the basics, like eating and sleeping."

"I am capable of taking care of myself, Booth. I've done so quite well from the time I was fifteen years old."

Booth considered that for a moment before he nodded somewhat reluctantly. "Yeah – okay, I could see that. You might not have been _happy, _but you would've at least survived okay."

He fell silent once more, chewing thoughtfully on the bread he'd taken from her.

"Booth?"

He frowned, leaning in a bit closer as he lowered his voice. "It's just… I'm not getting a good feeling from her, you know?"

"A good feeling?"

He didn't say anything further, which was beginning to annoy her.

"She needs a tribe," Brennan finally announced thoughtfully.

Booth looked at her in surprise. "Is that right?" There was a trace of a smile on his lips.

"I'm speaking metaphorically, of course," she explained. "Which I don't typically do, but… Human beings are social animals. Historically, cultures have been more successful - in terms of longevity and health and general well-being – when part of a larger community."

"And we have a tribe?" he said. She had the sense he was being purposely obtuse.

"Of course. Cam and Tripp, Angela and Hodgins, the interns, Sweets…"

"Zack," he added.

She felt a twinge of… Something. Regret, perhaps. "When he worked with us, Zack was very much a part of our community," she agreed after a moment.

"And I'm in your tribe, right, Bones?"

She merely gave him a look. He grinned in response. "Can I sleep in your tepee?"

"You can be very juvenile."

"Yeah, but you love me anyway. You maybe love me even more because of it."

Rather than responding, she nodded toward the buffet. "Why don't you get something for yourself, rather than eating everything off my plate? I'd like to talk to you about the ledger."

* * *

><p>Half an hour later, she and Booth had finished eating and now were poring over the ledger while the rest of the room continued to buzz with activity. The ledger itself was a truly fascinating find, with detailed notes about what had obviously been some type of secret society that met during the summer on Monhegan over the course of more than fifty years.<p>

"So, you're saying all this is in code," Booth said for perhaps the fifth time.

"But a very rudimentary one," she explained again. "It took Zack very little time to decipher the contents."

"And the contents include the names of all the people Erin just told me disappeared out here since the late 1800s."

"As well as more than a dozen others. From what I can gather, the goal was initially to actually complete the skeleton using a single bone from two hundred and six victims that this society deemed worthy of the sacrifice."

Booth slumped in his chair with a long, weary exhale. "Two hundred and six?"

"That's our theory," she said.

"And how'd they get them out here?"

She flipped the worn pages until she reached a marker Zack had left toward the back of the book. At first, the entry on that page had appeared as merely a random string of numbers to her; now that she understood the code and had looked at it enough, her mind translated it with relative ease.

"They say very little about it, but it appears anonymous invitations were sent each year."

"Let me guess: 'Congratulations, you've just won an all-expense paid trip to the middle of nowhere to be eaten by a jury of your peers?' " Booth quipped.

"I expect they were more subtle than that. And chances are good that the fact that one of the recruits was to be sacrificed was a closely-held secret."

"You'd think something like that would get around after awhile," he said.

A small girl raced past the table, narrowly avoiding a boy headed in the opposite direction. One of the parents from some indeterminate corner of the room shouted. Booth grimaced and touched his fingertips to his left temple.

"You have a headache?"

"You mean to tell me you don't? This place is a damn zoo."

The same little girl was headed in for another turn around the table when Booth got to his feet. He whistled through his teeth in much the same way he had earlier that evening, emitting a sound piercing enough to jumpstart the very headache she had successfully avoided up to that point.

Incredibly, the room fell silent.

"All right," he said. "That's it – time for bed. Everybody find a bunk, and Dr. Bones here and yours truly will tell you a bedtime story."

"We will?"

"Yeah, Bones – we will," he said, loudly enough for the rest of the room to hear. Then, in a more intimate tone, he added, "C'mon, Bones… It'll be good practice. If you really want kids, you've gotta be able to tell them stories, right? Just follow my lead."

She found it difficult to argue with that logic.

So, a few minutes before ten o'clock on an exceedingly snowy night on an exceedingly isolated island in Maine, Brennan sat beside a roaring fire and listened as Booth began their story.

"It was a dark and stormy night…" he began. Zoe snickered at that, which Brennan found somewhat rude. The children in the room, however, appeared completely rapt. "On an island far off the coast of Maine," Booth continued, "there lived an old sea captain."

"How old?" the little girl who had been careening wildly around the room not so long ago asked, from a mattress she was sharing with another little girl and a woman who was presumably their mother.

Booth wrinkled his forehead. "Huh?"

"How old?" she persisted.

"Oh – uh – real old. I don't know," Booth said a bit peevishly. "Maybe – "

"Was he forty?" Sam asked.

Booth glowered at the boy. "Forty isn't old – he was a lot older than that. He was a hundred and ten," he said.

Brennan frowned. "That's highly unlikely."

"Was he a mean sea captain?" the little girl asked.

Two of the smaller children began to cry before Booth could answer that. He looked pleadingly at Brennan. She raised her eyebrows in as clear a _What do you want me to do about it? e_xpression as she could manage.

Booth sighed. "Why is it whenever I'm telling a bedtime story around you," he whispered, "It always turns out like this? Parker used to love my stories."

He cleared his throat and addressed the room once more.

"Okay – Listen up. The sea captain wasn't that old, and the storm wasn't that stormy, and there was a nice old woman who met the old sea captain and they fell in love and lived happily ever after."

"Did they have a baby?" The little girl again.

"They were too old to have children," Brennan answered before Booth could.

"Why can't people have babies when their old?" another little girl asked.

By this time, the parents in the room didn't seem nearly so enamored with Booth or his storytelling skills.

"Old lady vaginas can't push out babies," a girl of about five announced. "They're too saggy."

At which point, Booth turned bright red, and all of the parents mercifully took it upon themselves to tell their own bedtime stories.

* * *

><p>It took just over an hour before the majority of the children were sleeping and the house had gone quiet. Diggs and Sweets had switched off and taken first shift for guard duty, and Brennan found it increasingly difficult to focus on the ledger or the case as the night wore on.<p>

For one thing, she was very tired – sleep had been in short supply since they'd arrived on the island, and it was beginning to wear on her nerves. For another thing, she and Booth were in their clothes, squished together on a narrow foam mattress pad in a corner of the room that was far from the fireplace and close to a very drafty old window. They were spooning under the blankets - Booth behind her, his arms wrapped around her and her back to his front.

"Are you asleep?" Booth asked, after perhaps five minutes of silence between them.

"I'm too uncomfortable to sleep."

"I thought you slept on tent floors in the middle of the jungle for months at a time." His mouth was close to her ear, and his lips lingered at her earlobe just long enough to send a shiver through her.

"A tent floor would be more comfortable than this. And I wasn't surrounded by quite so many people then."

"We could do something else for a while – you know, until you're tired enough to sleep."

She smiled at the offer. Booth's arm snaked around her middle and his warm hand found the hem of her shirt. She shifted, pressing back against him when his lips found the side of her neck. He was hard – she could feel him, and the knowledge and the feeling and the idea that this was very much something they should _not _be doing right now were enough to speed her pulse and start an ache that, she knew from experience, Booth would willingly sate.

His hand moved up, sliding past her stomach to graze the underside of her breast. "Is this okay?" he asked, his words rough in her ear.

She knew what he meant – since they'd been dealing with her reemerging memories of the rape, this position hadn't been a good one for her. She took a few seconds, evaluating her current state. Aroused? Definitely. Anxious? She thought about that, and then very deliberately pressed back against Booth again. She closed her eyes, willing herself to remain silent despite the way it felt when he palmed her breast and continued to kiss her neck.

"It's good," she whispered back.

Instead of continuing, however, Booth stopped suddenly and withdrew his hand from her shirt. She turned to look at him questioningly.

"I'm okay, Booth," she said.

She followed his gaze when he nodded toward a mattress with three sleeping children halfway across the room from them. One look in their direction and it was clear, however, that not all three children were asleep.

"Oh," she said, at sight of a little girl with very big eyes watching their every move. She sighed.

"I'm telling you, Bones – when this case is over, we're going away," Booth whispered. "No kids, no squints, no dogs. Just you and me, a lot of sunshine, and a bed the size of a boat."

Dosha, curled up beside their mattress, whimpered at that. She really was a very clever dog.

"And I don't want to hear anything from you," Booth said gruffly to the collie. "You get to sleep with her more than I do lately."

Brennan rolled over so that she was facing her partner once more. She lay her head on his chest, closed her eyes, and willed herself to sleep – since clearly nothing more exciting was going to happen.

It seemed that Brennan had barely closed her eyes when Sweets was gently shaking them awake. He looked haggard – which was understandable, given their circumstances. Brennan sat up and did her best to stretch the kinks out of her neck and back. By the looks of Booth, that wouldn't be nearly as easy for him; he could barely stand once Brennan was on her feet.

"Are you all right, Booth?" Sweets asked. "You don't look so good."

"I'm fine," he growled. "I just thought I'd left the nights of crashing on somebody's floor behind about ten years ago." He straightened with obvious effort and cracked his back. Brennan winced at the sound, and silently renewed her vow to convince him to at least give yoga a try before he dismissed it outright.

"No problems?" Booth asked Sweets.

Sweets shook his head. "I saw a rat – a big one. Other than that, though… Nothing. It was kind of a letdown."

"Yeah, well, maybe next time you'll get lucky." He glanced around the room. "Where's Diggs?"

"He went up to check on Erin – he said he won't be long."

Booth nodded. "You can take our bunk if you want. Try to get some sleep."

Outside, Brennan could still hear the wind howling. The old house creaked, the noise magnified by the silence of those sleeping around them.

"You want the kitchen or the lobby?" Booth asked her, indicating the two entrances they would be guarding.

"Lobby," Brennan said immediately. There was better light out there, so she could read the ledgers; besides which, Booth would want to raid the refrigerator during his shift. He grinned, as though he'd read her motives.

"You got it, babe." He kissed her quickly, directing a glare at Sweets when he realized the psychiatrist was watching them. "Got your gun?"

She reached into her bag, but Booth held up his hand. "That's all right – keep it there. Just as long as you've got it. Yell if you need anything. We'll check in in an hour."

And that was that. Brennan went back into the lobby, carefully closing the door behind her. She turned on the rustic old lamp in the corner, pulled out the Gormogon ledger, and made herself comfortable.

Not more than two minutes had passed before she was startled by footsteps on the stairs. She looked up to find Diggs taking the steps two at a time, clearly upset.

"She's gone," he announced while he was still on the stairwell.

"Ssh," she cautioned. "You'll wake everyone. Who's gone?"

"Solomon." He reached the ground floor and expelled a long breath of air, running a hand through his curly hair. "She's gonna drive me nuts."

"Couldn't she have just taken the dog for a walk?"

That theory was quickly disproven when Erin's compact little terrier came hurrying down the stairs in Diggs' wake.

"She left him. She never leaves the damn dog." He shook his head, then a moment later retrieved his hat and jacket from the coat rack in the entryway. "I've gotta look for her."

Brennan grabbed his arm before he could leave. His pupils were dilated, his breathing rapid – she recalled Booth's words earlier that evening, and realized that Diggs had been thinking the same thing: neither of them were getting a "good feeling" from Erin right now.

"Wait – if you go out there and something happens, it doesn't do anyone any good. We need to pair up and organize a search party."

He looked as though he might be about to argue, but at the look of steel in her eyes he merely nodded. "Yeah – okay."

* * *

><p>Brennan got Booth from the kitchen, where he'd just sat down with a back issue of some kind of fishing magazine and a giant sandwich that was sure to take an enormous toll on his gastrointestinal system before the night was out. He wrapped the sandwich with near-reverence and put it back in the refrigerator, made sure to lock the kitchen door behind him – though Brennan wasn't certain whether that was to keep intruders from the guests or the guests from his sandwich, - and followed Brennan into the lobby.<p>

"How the hell did she get past you?" Booth demanded as soon as he, Brennan, Sweets, Tripp, Cam, and Diggs were all in the lobby together.

"She didn't," Diggs said quickly. "She took one of the secret passages – there was no way anybody could have known." He paused. "Except me," he added grimly.

Tripp shook his head. "If she wanted out, she was gonna get out – we couldn't exactly put her under house arrest, could we? The important thing is that we get out there and find her now."

After a brief debate, they decided that Cam and Sweets would stay behind to resume guarding the rest of the inn's guests and staff. Tripp, Diggs, Booth, and Brennan pulled on all their winter gear and set out, Tripp and Diggs in one direction, Booth and Brennan in the other.

The snow had slowed, but the temperature had dropped and the wind was brutal. Booth and Brennan headed toward the pier, neither of them speaking, their heads bowed against the bitter cold. Brennan couldn't help but be annoyed at the actions of this woman, who seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that she was putting others in danger with her reckless behavior. If she had some idea of what Erin was trying to find, perhaps she could be more understanding – as it stood now, however, her patience was rapidly wearing thin.

She and Booth walked down the pier and took a cursory look around, Booth on one side of the dock and Brennan on the other. She was just about to rejoin him and head back up the hill to resume their search elsewhere when movement far in her periphery caught Brennan's attention. She turned, and her heart sank. For one hideous, spiteful moment, she considered not telling Booth what she saw.

Instead, she took a breath, paused, and shouted to be heard above the wind.

"What is it?" he asked, hurrying to her side.

She nodded toward the harbor. A speedboat – a small one, and certainly not the type that should be on the open ocean in this weather – was just heading out. They got as close the edge of the dock as they dared, peering into the darkness and wind. For just a moment, things cleared enough for them to see exactly who was in that boat.

Booth shook his head. "Goddammit – what the hell is she thinking?"

They stood there, watching her go. Brennan was torn between the urge to keep her partner – the man she loved; the man she ostensibly would be spending the rest of her life with – safe beside her, and what she viewed as a very valid concern for the Solomon woman's well-being.

"We should go after her," she said finally. "We can't just let her go out in this weather – she'll be killed."

Booth shook his head the moment the words were out. Everything went still. He looked her in the eye. Brennan had the sense that, whatever he was about to say, she wasn't going to like it.

"I need you to go back to the inn and let people know what's going on. Find Diggs and Tripp."

"And what will you be doing?" she asked, though she knew precisely what he would be doing.

He didn't say anything. It was her decision, she realized – she could ask him to stay and she had little doubt that Booth would do exactly that. She cursed the Solomon woman again, then nodded toward the roiling seas.

"We can't just let her die," she said.

Five minutes later, she watched as Booth grimly started another speedboat that had been tied up at the dock – this one larger and slightly sturdier than the one Erin had driven away in.

"I don't really have to tell you to be careful, do I?" she asked.

Booth shook his head. Their gazes locked, and Brennan swallowed past an undeniable surge of fear. It was as if Booth could read her thoughts; he smiled at her, his eyes dark and intense.

"I'm coming back, Bones – I won't be gone long. Just get back to the inn and make sure everybody's safe."

She nodded, then stood on the dock with the snow coming down and the wind gusting hard until Booth and the boat were swallowed in the dark night.

_**TBC**_

_**If you're ready to throttle Erin at this point (as Brennan clearly is), I totally understand - ideally, the next couple of chapters will change your mind. Things have been a little slow up to this point, but they're picking up fast in the next few chapters. And when might those chapters be up, you ask? It turns out... Tomorrow. You heard me right... I swear. Click the little button below to let me know if you're still with me on this epic Bones-y adventure, and don't forget to drop by Amazon to pick up a copy of my novel when you have a spare minute and three extra bucks in your penny jar. Thanks as always for reading, guys! **_


	17. Chapter Sixteen

_**It's another chapter! Trust me, I'm as shocked as you are. I know it's a short one, but the action's getting good these days - you'll have another one in your inbox tomorrow. And for those missing out on the good old fashioned smut, I promise pure, unadulterated M of the steamiest sort once Booth and Brennan get everybody situated and are able to get themselves off this damned island. ;-)**  
><em>

_Chapter Sixteen_

Erin Solomon was nuts. She had to be – _completely_ nuts, with a goddamn death wish to boot. And Booth was obviously even _more _nuts, because here he was in the middle of the blizzard of the century, trying to catch up to her. If Bones hadn't practically pushed him off the dock to do this, he told himself, he wouldn't even _be _out here. And if Sweets hadn't dragged them out to the island in the first place, he'd be curled up in a real bed in the middle of a real city with real take-out in the fridge and Bones real naked beneath him.

Goddamn friggin' Sweets.

With the wind against him, the snow felt like iced needles on Booth's cheeks and forehead. He wasn't on the water five minutes before waves started coming up over the bow of the speedboat he'd helped himself to. He couldn't even see Erin anymore. What the hell was he doing? He thought of Bones' face back on the dock, a mix of fear and worry and a healthy dose of just-plain-pissed-off… And still, she didn't ask him to stay. Bones wouldn't do that – not when somebody's life was at stake. No matter how terrified she might be, she'd never ask him to make that choice.

Another wave came up over the bow. Booth's feet were soaked and frozen already – where the hell was Erin going? He'd seen the look in her eyes earlier; hell, he'd seen it from the second they met. And maybe there was a grain of truth in the idea that the reason he was so hell-bent on helping Erin was because she reminded him of Bones back in the day, but he knew that wasn't the whole truth. And it didn't have anything to do with attraction or anything like it; it had to do with the fact that Booth had been right where he was sure Erin Solomon was standing, looking down over the precipice, trying to decide whether or not it was really worth dragging himself away from the edge.

It wasn't a good feeling, having to convince yourself every damn day that it really was worth crawling out of bed and putting on a good face. Before Parker and the FBI and Bones and all the things that had made Booth's life what it was today, he'd had a hell of a lot of mornings just like that. The long and short of it? Erin Solomon wanted to die. And maybe she wouldn't jump off a cliff anytime soon, but she might as well with the shit she was pulling.

A gust of wind came from the starboard side and knocked Booth's boat off course. He swore under his breath, his jaw clenched tight. He should just turn around – let her die, if that's really what she wanted.

He'd almost convinced himself he could do it, too – he could just turn around, to hell with it. Get back to Bones before he got himself killed out here. But then, his floodlight pierced the darkness and landed on Erin's boat, not fifty yards up ahead.

Booth gripped the wheel a little tighter, eased up on the throttle, and kept going.

When he pulled up alongside her, Erin's boat was just offshore from another hulking granite landmass rising up from the sea. It took Booth only a few seconds to remember the story he'd heard earlier that day in the dining room, about the cult that died on an island not far from Monhegan; the same island where Erin's father had gone nuts, before he finally killed himself. Dollars to donuts this was that very island.

Booth eased up on the throttle a little more, idling in the water. He was maybe twenty feet from Erin now, but the gusting wind or the sound of her own motor or maybe just whatever was going on inside her head, apparently overshadowed whatever noise his boat was making. He watched as she stood at the bow, her hands curled over the steel railing, her head tilted up and her gaze fixed on a series of ledges that rose high above the water.

The wind got lower, and Booth could swear he heard a moan in the distance. He swallowed past the urge to turn tail and run, but had to fight a lot harder to stand his ground when he caught a glimpse of whatever it was that had Erin so transfixed:

A light.

It was small enough that it had to belong to a lantern of some kind, moving in a slow, steady line along the cliffs above.

Before he could do anything – like head for the hills as fast as the damn boat would take him, for example – a gust of wind came on so strong that it nearly knocked him overboard. He grabbed the wheel and punched the throttle until he was clear of a grouping of jagged rocks just barely poking up from the surface of the water.

Erin wasn't so lucky, though.

Booth had no more than gotten himself back behind the wheel with his feet freezing and his hands like icicles, than there was a loud crash followed by the unmistakable, sickening sound of wood being torn in two. Booth looked up in time to see Erin lurch over the railing when her boat hit the rocks, and his stomach took a nosedive right along with her.

She screamed. The wind rose and, at the last second, she somehow managed to grab hold of the railing before she was swept away with the surf. She was still in the water, though, and as far as Booth could tell that couldn't possibly be a good thing.

"Hang on!" he yelled above the motor and the waves and the wind. Erin's head vanished beneath the waves. Booth threw his own boat into gear, maneuvering as carefully as he could through rocky shoals and high winds and raging seas and all the other shit that, he swore, ensured he would never set foot in Maine again as long as he lived.

She came up sputtering, still hanging tight to the railing, and Booth tossed a line that got swept up by the wind and missed her by ten yards. He pulled it back in and tried again. Another wave caught Erin and her sinking speedboat; when she went under this time, she didn't come back up again for five seconds that felt like days. When she finally resurfaced, her head lolled and her eyes were half-shut.

"Erin! Hey!" he shouted. "Wake up and grab the goddamn line!"

She came to and looked disoriented for just a second before a little spark of recognition touched her face. She nodded and said something he couldn't hear.

He threw the rope.

This time, she caught it.

"Tie it around your chest, under your arms," he yelled. That way if she passed out before he could get to her, he'd still be able to pull her in. The way she looked right now, he figured that was pretty damned likely.

She did as she was told, finishing up with a handy sailor's knot that Booth figured would hold up to whatever the seas might have in mind.

"If I let go, the waves are gonna sweep me straight into the rocks," she shouted to him before he could give her anymore instructions.

He'd thought of that, actually. He tugged on the line until there was no slack, and swallowed hard. For just a second, the image of Howard Epps flashed into his head – the feel of him slipping in Booth's hand, the way he'd looked as he fell. But this wasn't a high rise in D.C. and Erin wasn't a serial killer and he sure as hell wasn't ready to go back into full-time therapy with Gordon Gordon.

"You've gotta trust me," he called. "I need you to use the boat railing as long as you can to climb closer to me and farther from the rocks." The railing was halfway under water already, the starboard side closest to the shoals while port side was pointed in Booth's direction.

Erin nodded her understanding.

She clung to the railing, the waves occasionally pulling her under again before she'd come back up, sputtering and pissed and swearing her head off. Slowly, she crept hand over hand toward the end of the railing. When she reached the end, she looked at Booth. She had no color, other than a trail of blood at her left temple where she must've hit something. Booth pushed aside the idea that she wasn't going to make it through this.

"That's good, Erin - you're right where you need to be. Now all I need you to do is hang onto the rope nice and tight, and let go of the railing."

For a split second, genuine fear crossed her face. Booth watched as she pushed past it, bit her lip, and nodded.

"Go ahead," she yelled. Her voice was hoarse. A second later, after what Booth figured was one hell of an internal debate, Erin let go of the railing and clung to the rope instead.

Slowly and steadily, fighting the current and the wind and the crippling cold, Booth pulled her in.

_**TBC**_

_**Next chapter: Greta Garbo returns, that damned skeleton is still missing, and things get considerably more complicated back at the inn. Like what you're reading thus far? Don't forget to hit that pretty little button below to let me know!**_


	18. Chapter Seventeen

_**Okay, yes - I'm a little late. But only by two days, which is way better than six months. The good news? This puppy is almost done. The better news? I'm devoting the whole weekend to finishing, which means a whole parcel of updates and a concurrent celebration on over at www[dot]bloodwritesfanfiction[dot]com, with the M-rated finale going up Sunday evening. In the meantime, we've got vids, we've got favorite fics, we've got a whole cornucopia of Bones-related nonsense. Tell the neighbors! Bring the kids! (okay - don't bring the kids; this really isn't at all appropriate for them). Buckle yourselves in and get ready for a Bloodwrites Bones-tastic March spectacular, my friends! **  
><em>

_Chapter Seventeen_

The moment Booth was out of sight, Brennan regretted telling him to go. She had no doubt that he – much like herself – was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but it seemed that he had some kind of blind spot when it came to Erin Solomon. Brennan hurried up the path back to the inn, head down against the wind, her mind racing.

_Was _he attracted to the woman, and Brennan was merely fooling herself to think he would be above such things? Erin was undeniably attractive, and Booth – however trustworthy he might be – was still human, with biological urges just like every other human on the planet. Things had hardly been easy between the two of them for the past few months; it stood to reason that he might grow tired of all the drama they'd both been through recently.

A gust of wind hit her, the icy snow pelting her face so hard that tears came to her eyes. Though perhaps the snow wasn't entirely to blame for that.

By the time Brennan got back to the inn, she was out of breath and feeling considerably less charitable toward Erin Solomon, regardless of _what _her problems might be. It was nearly four a.m., and she was exhausted and cold and frustrated with everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. Diggs and Tripp were coming up the path just as she reached the front door; Brennan was so worked up at this point, the fact that the two men were not alone barely registered.

"Did you find her?" Diggs asked before she could say a word. "Where's Booth?"

"He went after her." She advanced on Diggs so quickly that he took a step back. "Your _friend _decided tonight was the perfect night for a midnight cruise. She's obviously mentally unstable, and now Booth is out there alone trying to find her." It sounded even more insane when she said the words aloud.

Diggs paled at the news. "She took a boat out?"

Tripp looked equally concerned. The charge between them – none other than Greta Garbo herself, clad in a tight-fitting, white fur-lined coat and matching boots – merely looked annoyed.

"If you guys are gonna fight, maybe I could just go inside and wait 'til your done," the woman said, her arms crossed tightly over her sizable chest.

"She took a boat out," Brennan confirmed, ignoring Greta outright. "We need to contact Marine Patrol or the Coast Guard or… someone."

They were still standing outside the door, but Brennan was reluctant to go inside until she knew there was some type of plan.

"There's no way we'll raise anyone and get them out here tonight," Diggs said. He looked back in the direction of the pier and scrubbed a hand across his chin before he drew a deep breath.

"We'll just have to go after them ourselves," he said.

Brennan nodded immediately. "If we take something larger than they did, we should be better able to navigate in these winds. Do you have any idea where she went?"

"Yeah," Diggs said without a moment's hesitation. "I've got a pretty good idea."

Tripp listened to this exchange wordlessly, but when Brennan reached for the doorknob, intent on setting the rescue in motion, he intercepted her hand.

"What?" she asked.

He hesitated, clearly reluctant to say whatever he was thinking.

"You don't think we should go after them," she guessed. She knew she was right when she saw the guilt in his eyes.

"We have almost thirty people we're trying to protect," Tripp said quietly. "Including a bunch of innocent kids, and a violent man who we know for a fact won't just let his sons go without a fight. Now with Booth gone, that leaves the three of us and Cam as the only reliable, trustworthy guardians physically able to keep this place safe until morning."

Brennan caught the worry on Diggs' face, and knew it was reflected on her own.

"So we just, what, leave them out there?" Diggs asked. His voice was rough, as though it took some effort to even speak the words aloud.

"Booth knows what he's doing," Tripp said.

Brennan made no comment. Her hands were frozen and her nose was running and Booth was out on a fool's mission that could well get him killed. And now she was being told she could do nothing to help him.

Intellectually, she knew that Tripp was right – Booth would never forgive himself if something happened to the others because everyone was off trying to rescue him. The fact that she knew it intellectually, however, didn't do anything to ease the knot in her stomach. And Diggs didn't look convinced on any level – intellectual or otherwise.

"We don't all have to go," he said. "I know these waters – I've been around boats my whole life. I'll go out and get them."

Tripp shook his head without a moment's thought. "And then we have three boats out there and three people missing – which just increases the odds that something will happen to at least one of you." Tripp looked the other man in the eye. "You know I'm right on this, Diggs. Seeley can handle it."

Brennan wished she could summon quite so much faith.

Before they could argue any further, Greta Garbo cleared her throat. "I hate to interrupt this, but it's twenty below. If you're gonna arrest me, just do it already – I'm pretty sure you can't legally let a prisoner freeze to death, right? There must be some law against that somewhere."

The low, purring voice that had so grated on Brennan's nerves earlier was gone now; Greta's voice sounded like any other woman's, albeit slightly shaky – no doubt due to her persistent shivering and chattering teeth.

"Where did you find her?" Brennan asked before Tripp could open the door. Greta moaned softly, hopping from one foot to the other in an effort to warm herself.

"She broke into the jail," Tripp said. "We're thinking she was looking for Lindley."

"But she didn't have the skeleton," Brennan guessed. It only made sense, really – the jail was on the other side of the island. Storm or no storm, she would have to be a complete fool to cart a skeleton around on the back of her ATV.

"No sign," Diggs agreed. "And so far she's definitely not talking."

Greta huffed out a small moan. "Seriously, you guys…" She nodded toward the door.

"Wait," Brennan said. The warmth of the inn was beckoning, but she ignored it for just a moment longer. She stood in front of the door, barring the others from entering, and looked pointedly at Greta. "I'm not law enforcement – and neither are these men. I have no qualms about leaving you out here until you tell us what you did with the skeleton."

"Listen, just because your boyfriend took off with the cute redhead's no excuse – "

That did it. No sooner were the words out than all of Brennan's frustration reached it's boiling point – Tripp caught her around the waist just before she landed what would have been a solid right hook to Greta's pretty jaw. Greta leaped back in surprise, but Brennan wasn't ready to let it go at that – she struggled to go after the other woman while Tripp held fast to her waist in an effort to keep the two apart.

She'd just broken free and was intent on pummeling the woman when the inn door opened. Cam stood there with an armful of towels and a distinctly unhappy look on her face.

"What the hell is going on out here?" she asked. "If you can tear yourself away from the catfight in the front yard, we've got some issues in here."

Brennan noted that she made no effort to be quiet, despite the fact that it was still the dead of night and most of the guests at the inn should presumably be sleeping. Greta rushed past Cam and went straight for the roaring fireplace. Cam turned a baffled eye toward Tripp.

"You do know you brought back the wrong woman, right?" she asked.

Tripp rolled his eyes. "Long story," he said shortly.

The moment they were inside it was easy to see why Cam wasn't trying to be quiet – it seemed that everyone was up and about, with several of the guests in the lobby. They didn't seem disturbed in any life-or-death sense, so Brennan assumed Sam and Will were safe. Reassuring as that might be, there was obviously something going on. Before she could ask, or anyone could launch into the story of where Greta had come from or where Booth and Erin had gone, Hodgins raced down the stairs and stopped halfway down the stairwell to shout over the banister. His eyes were wild and his hair was even wilder.

"Towels?" he asked, directing the question at Cam.

"I'm coming – just relax," she said.

"Relax?" he practically shouted. "Relax? My wife's about to have our kid two months early in a haunted hotel on some godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere, and there's a killer on the loose and a freakin' hundred-year-old skeleton that keeps disappearing. And you want me to relax?"

Zack came down the stairs behind him, and stopped short the moment he saw Greta warming herself by the fire.

"You found her?" He rushed down the stairs; the moment he reached her, Greta transformed immediately back into the kittenish vixen she'd been before her disappearance.

Cam raised an eyebrow toward Brennan and Tripp, as cool as ever. "I told you we had some issues."

_TBC_

* * *

><p><em><strong>I know - what's up with the short chapters? Things are just getting too crazy for long chaps, though. Like what you read so far? Show me some love by clicking that magic button below. And stay tuned for the next chapter, up later this evening! - Jen<strong>  
><em>


	19. Chapter Eighteen

_Chapter Eighteen_

Erin wasn't breathing when Booth pulled her into the boat, his own body so numb from the cold he could barely move. Luckily, she was so light it didn't take much effort to get her in; from there, he lay her on the deck and started chest compressions, thinking the whole time about the baby she was carrying and what the hell he would do if this was Bones.

It took a few chest compressions and three breaths before Erin spit up half the Atlantic, and then she just lay there in six inches of water with her eyes clouded and a look that was half-pain, half-terror on her face.

"What the hell are you doing out here?" she asked the second she could speak.

With a little help from Booth, she sat up. They were both drenched; it was so cold that Booth's clothes had frozen to his body. He couldn't imagine ever being warm again.

"Saving your ass," Booth said. "You're welcome, by the way."

She shook her head. "You shouldn't have come out here. I didn't mean for anybody to follow me." Her voice was ragged, barely above a whisper. Her eyes filled with tears, and she brushed them away with a sopping shirtsleeve. "Jesus." She looked around, like she was just realizing where they were. "What a fucking mess."

He barked a short, hopeless laugh. "Yeah. You could say that."

Booth took a second to evaluate the situation. They were both drenched. No cover on the boat. No dry clothes. It was at least half an hour's boat ride to get back to Monhegan – _if _they made it back at all. He nodded toward the island he assumed had been her goal in the first place.

"Is there a dock over there?"

A glimmer of something – maybe hope, but Booth was having a hard time reading her at this point – touched her eyes.

"There is – yeah. I haven't been out there in years, but I have a contact… He said it's still okay."

She closed her eyes. She was shivering and pale, the cut at her temple still bleeding a little. Booth stood with monumental effort and got back at the helm. If people used to live out on the island, there must be some kind of shelter, at least. Maybe a place to build a fire and just wait out the storm 'til morning. He thought of Bones again – God, he'd made a mess of things. He knew she was all about the No Jealousy thing, but he'd seen the way she was looking at him just before he left her standing on the dock in the middle of a fucking blizzard. To go save another woman.

Jesus.

Well, if he'd come this far, he couldn't very well just let that other woman die now.

He nudged Erin with his foot – graceless, yeah, but he was fucking frozen and trying to steer and keep them alive. Graceless was the best he was gonna do tonight.

"Erin – come on, get up. I'm gonna dock this thing and we're gonna find a warm place to shack up for the night – " Shit. Bad choice of words. "I mean – you know. A warm place to stay 'til morning."

She didn't move. He pushed the throttle forward as much as he dared, one hand on the wheel while he shook her shoulder with the other. Her head lolled, but after a second her eyes opened.

"Get up. Come on." He put his arm around her and hauled her up until she was on her feet – sort of – beside him. "You think there's a cabin or something there?"

She blinked. It took a few seconds for her to answer, like the question hadn't quite registered. She wet her lips and drew a shaky breath before she nodded. "Yeah. There are cabins. There's a house. He said it's all still there." Her eyes drifted shut again.

Booth shook her roughly. They were inside the cove still – less wind, less snow, easier current. "Come on, dammit – wake up. I didn't come all this way to watch you die. Who said it's still there?"

She didn't answer. Booth had one hand on the steering wheel – or whatever the hell you called the steering wheel of a boat – and the other arm wrapped around Erin, trying to keep her up. Her head lolled to the side, resting on his shoulder, and suddenly she was dead weight. He grimaced at the choice of words; she wasn't dead weight yet, dammit.

The problem – or one of them, anyway – was, if he did get her out to this haunted friggin' island over here, _then_ what the hell was he supposed to do? She needed a warm bed and a doctor – both of which he'd be able to find on Monhegan. He didn't know what the hell he'd find out here.

If he could get back to Monhegan instead… He looked back out into the darkness, out toward the mouth of the cove. They'd taken on water, though – there was no way they'd make it back in this boat.

No way in hell.

And then he saw it – like some answered prayer, sitting there in the darkness without a soul in any direction: A fishing boat. Not so big he couldn't handle it, but big enough that it'd be a hell of a lot more stable than the one they were in now. It was moored not far from shore; he felt a pinprick of uneasiness at the sight, but that pinprick was nothing compared to everything else he was up against at the moment. Now wasn't the time to look a gift horse in the mouth, that was for damn sure.

"Hey! Erin – whose boat is that?"

He glanced at her and felt that chill that was just about killing him go straight to his bones. He couldn't see her chest moving, got no response when he tried to get her attention. That was it – he had no choice.

He set her down in the icy water at the bottom of the boat again, wishing like hell there was something – anything – that he could set her on that would be a little drier. He breathed into her mouth, three times. Thought of Bones, waiting for him back on the island. If this were her, he wouldn't care who it was – he'd just want somebody there to help her. He did another round of chest compressions. His hands and feet were numb now – not a good sign.

Finally, after sixteen eternities, Erin's chest rose and fell on its own. She didn't wake up, though. Booth lifted her into a seat beside the wheel and took the helm again. He turned the boat away from the island, and headed straight for the abandoned fishing boat.

Another three minutes and he was pulling up alongside the boat. Erin was still unconscious, but at least she was breathing – it was hardly something to jump up and down about, but at this point he'd take whatever he could get. The fishing boat rose up out of the water a good five feet above his smaller speedboat, which meant he'd have to climb aboard first and then somehow drag Erin up there. She was pretty small, but she was still soaking wet and he wasn't exactly at his best at the moment.

"Hey!" he yelled up into the other boat.

That pinprick of uneasiness he'd felt before was growing. He pulled his gun just in case, lost in the cold and the darkness while the shadow of that goddamn island loomed over them like some sleeping giant. Nobody answered from the other boat. They were maybe three feet away before he could read the name on the side.

Shit.

Booth glanced over his shoulder. Erin was still slumped in the seat where he'd left her, not moving.

There was no doubt about it – this was the boat Constable Mills had told him Lindley had stolen. So, where was Lindley now? On the island, or waiting there in the darkness to jump Booth the first chance he got?

Booth shook himself, swore again under his breath, and then made his decision. He went back to Erin and shook her until her head just about rolled off. Finally, she opened her eyes. She blinked a couple of times, not sure where she was or what was happening. Booth knew the feeling.

"I need you to wake up – you got it? We're getting on that boat."

He nodded toward the constable's fishing boat, still rolling back and forth on the waves next to them. Erin wet her lips.

"What about the island?" she asked.

"Forget the island," he said. For just a second, he thought she might actually fight him on that. He didn't even give her a chance to try. "We're going on the boat – I'm taking you back to Monhegan. Neither one of us are gonna last the night otherwise."

It sounded melodramatic when he said it, but he had a feeling it was the truth. He couldn't feel his fingers or toes anymore, so… Okay, yeah, maybe he'd survive, but he planned on keeping all his goddamn digits in the process.

Booth got Erin up and she somehow managed to stay on her feet. The other boat was still a good body's length away – something he would've made easily in better conditions. As it was, he was barely able to pull himself up over the railing. Once he had, he clung to it for a second, trying to get his breath. He got another little flash of Bones in his head – the pretty smile, those knockout blue eyes. He forced himself to stand up straight. They'd come too far, been through way too much, for him to die out here on a perfectly good fishing boat just half an hour from help.

He called back down to Erin, then turned to take a minute to scan the boat.

He stopped short, his frozen heart thudding in his frozen chest.

Staring at him, half-covered in snow and ice, glinting in the moonlight, was the Gormogon skeleton. And beside it, cast half in shadow, sat Paul Lindley.

_TBC  
><em>

_**Next chapter will be up tomorrow - thanks as always for reading!**_


	20. Chapter Nineteen

_Chapter Nineteen_

"But it's too early for her to have the baby," Brennan said. She'd said the same thing at least three times now, but no one seemed terribly concerned by it.

"She's twenty-eight weeks," Tripp said. He was scrubbing his hands in a bathroom on the second floor, while Brennan and Cam stood in the doorway watching him. "A baby can live outside the womb by twenty-four weeks. We can handle this."

She'd forgotten that Tripp had been a doctor once – a surgeon, before his wife died of cancer and he moved his children to Maine to be a hippie. That's the way Booth had told the story to her, at any rate; Brennan suspected there was more to it than that.

"We should have at least one of you downstairs standing watch," he said, directing the statement to both she and Cam.

Cam didn't look nearly as ruffled as Brennan felt, so she was surprised when the pathologist volunteered to join the others while Brennan helped deliver the baby.

"You're her best friend," Cam explained. "She needs you."

It was the type of thing Booth would say. Brennan nodded. She glanced at her watch. It was four-thirty – Booth had been gone for well over an hour now.

"All right," she agreed. She didn't know who to be more worried about anymore: Booth or Angela. "I don't know how helpful I'll be, though – I'm much more accustomed to bones than babies."

Tripp smiled at her encouragingly as Cam left them. "We've got this," he said.

There was no trace of doubt in his voice, which she found reassuring. There were things she was that confident about – cultures most people had never heard of before, bone dimples and sciatic arches and excavation protocols… She missed those things, suddenly, very much. He led the way into the bedroom down the hall, where Angela was waiting for them, and stopped just outside the doorway.

"He'll be all right too, you know."

She didn't know any such thing, actually. "The winds are still gusting, and the snow was supposed to stop hours ago. He didn't even have any gear with him."

Tripp considered this. "Just focus on this for now, okay? By the time this baby's delivered, it'll be daylight. The Coast Guard will be here, and I bet Booth will already be back, bitching about the snow."

She attempted a smile at the thought, but her was stomach still knotted and her hands clammy. If it were her, Booth would never just stand by and wait for her to come back on her own, would he? He would find her – no matter what. She nodded at Tripp and tried to push the thought of her partner out there somewhere waiting for her help. She'd only half-succeeded when a voice behind her stopped her in her tracks.

"Why isn't Booth back yet?"

Brennan turned in surprise at the question. There, standing in the middle of the hallway with their arms crossed over their chests and inappropriately serious expressions for such young faces, were Will and Sam. Tripp glanced at Brennan, as though trying to gauge whether or not she could field the question herself.

"Go in," Brennan told him. "I'll be right there."

Tripp went into the bedroom, where Brennan could hear Angela saying things that were most definitely not meant for children's ears. She shepherded the boys back down the hall toward the stairwell, and sat down on the top step. The boys joined her – Brennan at one end of the step, Will and Sam seated close together just a few inches away.

"Did our dad get him?" Will asked. Sam looked unnerved at his younger brother's question, but he didn't dispute the fact that it was a possibility.

"He had to go help someone else – they'll be back soon."

A flicker of doubt crossed Sam's face, as though he were trying to determine whether or not she was lying. "How soon?" he asked.

"I don't know. But this wasn't your father's fault." That part, at least, was true. "There was someone else here who needed his help. You know Booth," she said, with a lightness she didn't feel. "He can't ignore a distress call, no matter the source."

There was a tiny pulse of tightness in her chest when she said the words, which surprised her. Why should that annoy her? One of the things she'd admired most about Booth for as long as she'd known him was his devotion to helping others, his willingness to do whatever was necessary to ensure that justice prevailed. How could that possibly have changed?

"Will you tell us when he comes back?" Will asked.

"Of course." A particularly vicious curse echoed down the hallway from Angela's room. Brennan was surprised to see a genuine, boyish grin on Sam's lips.

"I guess you should probably go in there."

She grimaced. "I don't suppose you know anything about delivering babies?"

Will actually giggled. "We wouldn't go in there if you paid us a hundred bucks."

Brennan took a deep breath and stood. "I can't say that I blame you. Now – go find Cam, and see if she needs any help with anything down there. And remember the rule?"

"Don't go near the windows or the doors," they said in unison, with a roll of their eyes that reminded her of Parker.

The next question had become the most difficult to ask. "And if you see your father?"

Their good humor vanished. Will bit his lip. Sam draped a protective arm around his brother's shoulders and looked at Brennan solemnly. "Yell for help," he said. That was the answer they had rehearsed; she found she wasn't quite prepared for the second part. "And run like hell," the boy finished quietly.

Angela was sitting up in bed with her legs spread beneath the blankets and Tripp seated on a stool at her feet when Brennan went in. Her hair clung to her forehead, damp with perspiration, and her face was flushed. She looked as though she may have been crying recently. Hodgins sat at her right side, holding her hand. When she caught sight of Brennan, however, the artist sighed dramatically.

"Thank god, sweetie. Get over here – I need somebody without a penis on my side."

Despite everything, Brennan couldn't help but smile. She took a deep breath, pushed aside her mounting concern for Booth for the moment, and went to her friend.

**_TBC_**


	21. Chapter Twenty

_Chapter Twenty_

Booth's hand tightened around the grip of his gun at sight of the man waiting for him, but otherwise he didn't move.

"Easy, Lindley," he said, nice and quiet. "This doesn't have to be the end of the road for either of us."

Lindley didn't say a word. Didn't move a muscle. Booth took a cautious step forward. If he had spidey senses, he was sure they'd be off the charts right now.

"Lindley?"

When he got no answer, he took another step forward. Now he could see _why _Lindley had been so quiet: There was a neat, round hole in the middle of his forehead, and a trickle of blood frozen beneath it. His eyes were open, sightless, and there was frost on his eyebrows and hair. He'd been here awhile, then.

Booth held his gun up higher, two parts relieved and one part seriously unnerved. If Lindley was dead but the Gormogon skeleton was still there… Well, he didn't really know what that meant, but he was pretty sure whoever had pulled the trigger on Lindley wouldn't have gone too far without that damn skeleton.

"Hello?" he called, then cringed at the sound of his voice. Yeah – because if you're sneaking onto a boat where a crazy killer might be lying in wait, it's always good to announce yourself. Jesus; he was losing it.

He glanced back down at the other boat, where Erin was still waiting. She had a death grip on the side, and he knew she wouldn't be conscious much longer if he didn't do something. Right.

The boat was maybe thirty feet long, with a pilothouse and a cramped bunk and some storage space below deck. The radio in the pilothouse was disabled, but everything else looked like it was in working order. Booth searched the rest of the boat as fast as he could while still keeping an ear out for Erin and an eye out for crazed Gormogon apprentices. Nobody was there. Whoever was behind this, they were gone for the moment – and Booth didn't plan on sticking around until they came back.

"Erin!" he called over the side, once he was sure they were alone. "You still with me?"

She nodded – he could barely see the movement through the haze of snow still falling, but at least it was something.

"Good. We're gonna do the same thing we did before to get you up here – you tie a rope around yourself, and then I'll give you a hand to make it across, okay?"

He sort of expected her to fall apart at that point – she was half-dead, after all. He could hardly blame her for a little meltdown. Instead, she gave a stronger nod this time and looked him in the eye. She might be half dead, but there was still some spirit in there.

"Okay – yeah. I've got this," she said, her voice so hoarse he could barely hear her.

Somehow, she managed to make her fingers work enough to tie the rope around her chest and under her arms again. Booth stretched out over the side of the larger boat as far as he could, caught the other end of the rope when she tossed it to him, and tied it around one of the cleats on the deck to use as an anchor.

As it turned out, though, Erin didn't much need the rope. She got up on the edge of her boat with the thing rocking like a speed metal junkie underneath her, grabbed hold of Booth's hand, and pulled herself up and over the edge of the other boat in under a minute. She landed in a heap on the deck, stayed there a few seconds, and then gingerly pulled herself back up. She sat with her back against side of the boat, knees pulled up to her chest. Booth sat beside her, both of them gasping like they'd just finished the Iron Man. About sixty seconds passed before Erin cleared her throat.

"Uh, Booth?"

"Yeah?" He turned to her.

"Am I hallucinating, or is there a silver skeleton over there with a dead guy beside it?"

He shook his head. "Nah. It's real."

Just a quick pause before she took a breath. "That's good," she said. "I'd hate to think I was going nuts on top of everything else."

* * *

><p>Booth gave them about two minutes to sit there and get their breath before he was up again.<p>

"Come on." He took Erin's hand and hauled her back up onto her feet. "There's food and dry clothes below deck – get down there and change, then find something for us to eat. I'll get the boat started."

Again, he waited for her to argue. Instead, there was a second or two where she seemed to be shoring up before she actually started moving again, and then she kind of reeled into the pilothouse. Booth followed, but he stood aside and let her maneuver while she clambered through the little trapdoor below.

Okay – she was up, and she was still breathing. They had clothes, they had food, and they had a boat that could get them back to the island. Not to mention the fact that, as fate would have it, Paul Lindley was dead and the Gormogon skeleton had practically fallen in Booth's lap.

Things were starting to look up.

There was no key for the boat, but that was just a minor hiccup – with a little creative know-how and some of that handy special ops training he'd gotten over the years, Booth was able to hotwire the thing back to life. Erin came up from below a couple minutes later wearing a huge sweatshirt and some even huger sweatpants, along with gloves and what looked like three pairs of socks on her small feet.

"It doesn't look like it, but I did actually leave some stuff for you down there," she said, a little sheepishly.

That was good, because Booth was pretty sure he was about to lose some fairly important appendages if he didn't get out of the clothes he was in and into something dry.

"You mind taking the wheel? What'd you find for food down there?"

"Beans," she said. "A rat ton of canned baked beans, and some Spam." She grabbed the wheel while Booth went below.

The bunk was small, but it was neat and at the moment it looked damned inviting. Booth pushed that thought aside, and settled instead for rooting through the clothes until he found a dry pair of long underwear and some Carthartts that looked like they'd fit. Wait 'til Bones got a load of him in this stuff.

Erin was right about the food – baked beans and Spam. Booth changed as fast as he could, grabbed a couple cans of beans and a tin of the godawful fake meat, and went back up top. He opened a can of beans and handed them off to her with a plastic spoon while he took over at the wheel again.

"Eat," he said. He didn't even look at her, just daring her to fight him on it. When he glanced at her, though, she'd already dug in. No fight at all.

"You're feeling better?" he asked, eyes on the horizon while he tried to see his way clear around the snow and high seas.

"A little," she said. They were silent for a few seconds. Booth had the feeling there was something she wanted to say, but – even knowing her for as short a time as he had – he had the sense Erin wasn't the kind of woman who could be prodded into spilling her guts. She'd have to come to it on her own.

"I really didn't mean for anyone to come after me," she said, repeating what she'd said when he'd first hauled her out of the water. "This is my fight – I didn't want to drag anybody else into it."

"Yeah - I believe you," he said. "But it was kind of dumb, thinking we'd just let you go off in the middle of a blizzard. I mean – forget me, I barely know you. But you really think Diggs would've just let you go?"

"Well, that was kind of the point of sneaking away." She gave him a little sidelong smile, though she still looked sorry as hell. "Your partner must be ready to kill me."

"Pretty much," he agreed.

They'd been on the water maybe fifteen minutes, but with the wind working against them it didn't feel like the boat had moved at all. He kept a close eye on the gauges on the dashboard, charting his course that way since trying to do it by sight in the storm was pointless. Erin was definitely better than she had been, but she still looked unsteady on her feet. Booth nodded toward the hatch again.

"Why don't you go lie down? It won't be much longer and we'll be back to Monhegan – a little rest might do you and the kid some good." He nodded toward her stomach, gauging her reaction.

She hesitated a second; Booth got the sense she knew exactly what he was asking. "I think he's okay," she said, kind of quiet. Booth fought a smile.

"He?"

She rolled her eyes. Blushed, like she'd said something stupid. "It's just a feeling – I don't know. But when I was in the water…" She stopped and shook her head, brushing the whole thing off with a wave of her hand. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. But I think I'm okay."

She went back down below before Booth could ask anything else – which of course was her point, but right now he didn't really give a rat's ass. Something had happened while she was in the water; whether it was a come to Jesus moment or just the realization that somebody else was relying on her for his survival now, didn't really matter. Booth had the sense that she'd turned a corner in all this.

Once he was alone, Booth's thoughts rocketed straight back to Bones. She'd said she wanted to get married. She'd gone off the pill, he'd tossed the condoms – it was just a matter of time before they had their own baby on the way. It felt like everything they'd been through had been leading up to this moment – from the first time he'd laid eyes on her, all the scrapes he'd baled her out of, all the near-death situations she'd saved him from… All of it leading up to the two of them in a little house, living out the rest of their lives together.

Now, he just had to get back to her and get them both off that goddamn island.

"I'll take the wheel now, if you don't mind."

The voice surprised Booth so much he nearly jumped out of his skin. He closed his eyes for just a second, feeling a dread so deep it just about bottomed him out. He was still composing what he'd say, how the hell he was going to bargain his way out of this long enough to stay alive, when he turned. The man standing at the door of the pilothouse apparently wasn't interested in giving him enough time to figure something out, though: Booth had no more than turned to face him, thinking of Bones and the house they hadn't built yet and the baby they hadn't had, the places they hadn't gone and all the things he hadn't said, when Constable Mills leveled a 9mm at his chest and fired, point blank.

**_TBC_**

**__**_**Possibly my cruelest cliffhanger ever? Just hang on, kids - fresh chapters will be up by this afternoon. **_


	22. Chapter TwentyOne

_**You thought I wasn't coming back, didn't you. Would I do that to you? Okay... Yeah, maybe. But not this time. Read away!  
><strong>_

_Chapter Twenty-One_

It hit Brennan like a fifty-pound weight had hit her full in the chest, so real and so sudden that she nearly cried out. Angela was still in the bed, though the contractions had passed for the moment and she was resting comfortably. Hodgins was in a chair on the other side of the bed. Tripp had gone to check on Cam and the others. It was nearly six a.m., and they'd heard nothing from Booth or Erin. And it just… hit.

Brennan sat bolt upright in her chair, her eyes wide and her pulse pounding.

"Whoa," Angela said. "Are you okay, sweetie?"

The feeling brought tears to her eyes and an indefinable terror that chilled her to the bone.

"I – " she stopped. _Was_ she okay? Booth was still out there – it was nearly six a.m., and they'd still gotten no word from him. The storm was still raging and no boats were out on the water; Diggs had been trying to reach the Coast Guard or Marine Patrol, but all communication seemed to be down. Even the island constable wasn't answering his telephone.

"Bren?" Angela prompted, when Brennan didn't complete her sentence.

Tripp came into the room.

"Did you hear something?" she asked immediately. He shook his head. That feeling – the pain that had nearly knocked her out of her chair – had faded, but it was still there.

Angela squeezed her hand. "If you need to go, Bren…"

She blinked back tears. What would Booth do? Faced with the possible deaths of an entire inn of people, while his best friend's health was likewise in danger…? What would he do, if he knew she was out there alone?

She knew the answer, because she knew Booth: he would have to make sure the others were safe first, but he wouldn't simply wait for fate to intervene.

"I don't know," she said to Angela, her voice a harsh whisper. There were tears and she couldn't explain them, couldn't identify this nameless dread that filled her. "I think I have to find him." A tear fell down her cheek.

Angela didn't look surprised. "I know," she whispered back, excluding the men in the room from their conversation. "Sweetie – I know. Just please be careful."

The next question was how to even go about trying to find him, when she was certain Tripp would try to intervene. Angela looked at her and, for some inexplicable reason, winked conspiratorially. Brennan was clueless for a moment until Angela stiffened and clutched Hodgins hand so hard he fell to his knees.

"Motherfucker!" she shouted, with a steady scream of equally robust curses following that. Brennan couldn't tell whether the contraction was real or she was faking it – but if she was faking it, Angela deserved an award.

Brennan stuttered a quick lie about getting more ice chips, and hurried out of the room.

The hallway was empty. She went back to her bedroom and changed into the warmest clothes she could find, that indefinable pain in her chest still radiating outward. Booth's T-shirt was on her bed; she picked it up and held it to her face, her eyes closed as she inhaled his scent.

"Please be all right," she whispered.

Then, she went downstairs to get Diggs, satisfied that she was making the right decision – the decision Booth would make in her place. She would find him.

_**TBC**_


	23. Chapter TwentyTwo

__**_Okay, fair warning: writing this chapter nearly made me hyperventilate... Read at your own risk. _**

_Chapter Twenty-Two_

He didn't have time to brace himself; had no time to think or react or… anything. The bullet flung Booth backward, and the pain was like an arrow of pure fire that pierced the skin and went clear through to the other side of everything. He landed on the floor, hard, but the impact of the fall was nothing compared to the agony in his chest.

Everything turned to shadow, and somewhere far off he could hear people fighting. A woman's voice. More shadows, all around him. Water below, rocking him too hard.

"Bones," he whispered.

She didn't answer him. She wasn't here – that was good, she wouldn't be safe here. Something hit his legs – a body that fell beside him that wasn't his and wasn't dead because he could feel them moving but he kept his eyes closed and he could feel his blood seeping out of his body – he was warm with it, it was sticky around him. Then somebody was beside him with her hands on his chest, pressing too hard. Pressure was good – that was what they were supposed to do. Bones would know that.

This wasn't Bones, though.

_Get up, Seel. One more round, buddy. _

He flinched at the voice. He kept his eyes closed, because he didn't want to see whatever was waiting for him. The constable – that was who'd shot him. That other voice was in his head. _Come on, kid. Show your old man what you've got._

It swept him under for a second – the voice and the movement and the pain his chest. But then he pushed past it and he knew if he could get around all that, he'd be all right. He was still alive – that was what mattered. When he opened his eyes, Erin was kneeling over him with her hands on his chest. The constable was behind her with a gun to her head. _Curtains, kid. _He kept his eyes open, but he couldn't see anything but black and he couldn't hear anything but his old man's voice, and then there was nothing but the pain in his chest and the rocking beneath him and the blood leaving his body.

* * *

><p>"Booth? Dammit, Booth, wake up."<p>

His eyes fluttered. He couldn't breathe; then, when he did breathe, he wished he hadn't. He was in a tiny room on a tiny bed. Erin was sitting on the edge of it with a pair of scissors and what looked like a bed sheet in her hands. The world was moving. He was on fire.

"Where are we?" he asked. His words barely came out – they felt like they'd been ripped from somewhere too deep to reach. They'd never make it to somebody else's ears.

Erin heard him, though. She looked like she might cry. He hated seeing women cry.

"I'm gonna patch you up, okay?" she said. She was whispering. The tears he thought she was about to spill disappeared, and he felt better.

Nothing made sense. He tried to push past the mud in his brain. "He was hurt - " he whispered. The constable. He'd seen him on the island, bleeding. Shot. Lindley had gotten to him.

"Not that hurt, apparently," Erin said dryly. "I never liked that son of a bitch, y'know?" She hesitated for a second. Booth tried to make sense of everything. "I convinced him he should keep us alive – use us as hostages when the Coast Guard catches up to him. I don't know how much time it'll give us, but it's something."

He stared at the ceiling while she cut his shirt open. It was a low ceiling – maybe a foot above his head. He couldn't stand – even if he _could _stand, he couldn't. Not enough room. The world spun, and he closed his eyes again. He felt like he might be sick, but he pushed that feeling far down.

_Suck it up, Seeley – real men don't cry, kid. _He saw his father – cigarette between his lips, scotch in his hand. _You think you got it worse than anybody else in the world?_

The fire was spreading in his chest. He opened his eyes when he felt Erin stop working on him; he could tell she was worried by the look on her face. She smiled at him, though – like she had everything under control.

"My mother's a doctor," she said, like she knew what he was thinking. "I used to trail her on her bloodiest calls when I was a kid. I picked up a few things."

He didn't know what to say to that. He couldn't speak anyway – his tongue felt too big and his lips were too dry and he couldn't catch his breath. Somebody was walking above them. The constable. He thought back to that interview with Lindley in the jail cell - Mills coming to his rescue before Booth could get to the truth. He'd missed the whole thing. Things got muddy in his head again, and he pushed all that aside. There was a rattling in his chest and it was getting harder to breathe.

"Why did you come out here?" he whispered – half-gasped it, but he needed her to talk, needed to hear something other than his old man's voice and all the shit he'd missed about this case and the death rattle in his own chest.

She glanced at him while she put a fresh bedsheet-bandage on his chest. He could see her debating on whether to answer before she finally gave in. He'd have to remember this in interrogation – apparently, people'd tell anything to a guy with a sucking chest wound.

"It's my island," she said. When she realized that didn't make sense, she back tracked – all the while checking his bandage, taking his pulse, looking more and more worried.

"I got a letter – last week. It came before that, but I hadn't been home for a while and Michael wasn't…"

The pressure was building in his chest, crowding out any space for breath. Erin looked him in the eye and swallowed hard. She looked pale, but stronger than she had. Everything had gone fuzzy at the edges.

"Booth?' she said quietly. "You're having trouble breathing?"

He nodded. It was the best he could do – he didn't have enough air to speak.

"Shit," she said softly. She knelt beside the bed and looked him in the eye. "You saved my ass, right? You're not dying out here, either. Seriously – you die, and I'll be monumentally pissed. And I'm pretty sure your partner will string me from the highest treetop, so… No dying. I just want you to take it easy, all right?"

She turned away and started rooting through everything on the floor, looking for something, and his dad was there again, watching through narrowed eyes, arms crossed over his chest. He felt another surge of nausea and that combined with the pain and the fact that he couldn't breathe sent everything up a notch; he could feel himself start to panic.

Erin turned around just in time, holding something in her hands. A knife. That definitely didn't help the panic. She scooted back over to his side.

"That feeling you have right now – the racing heart, the sick stomach, that feeling like you're gonna climb out of your skin?" Her voice was calm and even. She was working on his chest – unwrapping it, looking for something. He could feel her hands moving between his ribs, poking there. He nodded.

"That's because you're not getting enough air," she said. Like they were just having a nice, normal conversation. "I'm gonna fix that, okay?"

He tried to float; they'd learned about this back in the Rangers. All the shit your head would throw at you when your body started to shut down. If he could get a full breath, he kept thinking… One full breath, and he'd be able to calm down.

"I want you to think about your partner – okay, Booth?"

The words brought him back almost as much as a lungful of fresh air would have.

"One more minute, and you'll be breathing again. Just keep thinking about your girl, all right?"

Booth did what she said – he thought about Bones, swimming past his father's voice and the pain in his chest and the need for air that was almost drowning out everything else. He thought of the first time he'd seen her, the way she'd tasted when he kissed her in the rain that first time and the way she laughed and the awful jokes she told and the way she and Parker talked about science and –

The world exploded in shards of light and a burst of pain so deep that he screamed – a rattling, barely-there scream – when Erin sunk the knife into his chest. He waited to die, but instead he could breathe again and Bones was still there, still waiting for him, and his father was gone, and he closed his eyes and he let the light turn to black again.

_**TBC**_


	24. Chapter TwentyThree

_**Okay, guys, I owe you ****all a huge apology, since my Bonesfest 2012 this weekend was cut tragically short by technical difficulties with . To make up for it, this whole week is now officially Bonesfest 2012 over at my website. I'm running a very fun contest with prizes including a $25 Amazon gift certificate, a signed print copy of my book, and a fic of your choice written by yours truly... You should absolutely head over to the website at www[dot]bloodwritesfanfiction[dot]com to sign up, and expect regular updates for the rest of the week! - Jen**  
><em>

_Chapter Twenty-Three_

Brennan was halfway down the stairs before she realized exactly what she needed to do. Zoe was absorbed with paperwork at the front desk; Sweets, Zack, and Greta were seated on the sofa in front of the fire having what appeared to be a very intense conversation. Dosha and Einstein both raced up the stairs to greet her, but she ignored the dogs. She took a deep breath, then rushed down the steps and was across the room and kneeling on the sofa with her hand around Greta's throat before anyone had any idea what she was doing.

Zack jumped up, and Greta shrieked in alarm.

"Where's Paul Lindley?" Brennan asked, as quietly as she possibly could while still conveying deadly intent.

"Dr. Brennan!" Zack said. He tried to grab her arm, but she pushed him away.

"We've been sitting here all night waiting for this man to come back for us, and there's been no sign of him – I want to know why that is!"

"Dr. Brennan, if you'll just give us a minute I'm sure we can – " Sweets tried. She cast a steely glare his way. He clamped his mouth shut, though he was clearly displeased.

"I don't have any patience left," she ground out, surprised at just how true that statement was. Greta tried to gasp something out, and Brennan realized that she'd have to release her hold to at least some extent if she wanted the woman to speak.

As soon as Greta was free, she gasped melodramatically. Brennan didn't budge. "You must know something. I don't care what we have to do to find out – "

"Uh, Dr. Brennan – " Zack tried again. She batted away his hand.

"I've had it with waiting – "

Sweets handed her something – or attempted to, at least twice, before she lost patience and took it from him. It was a yellow legal pad, with what appeared to be several pages of writing in a fine script. She looked at the psychiatrist.

"What is this?"

"Uh – I believe that's what we in the business call a confession, actually." He looked immensely pleased with himself.

Brennan gaped at him in disbelief. "And you didn't think it might be important to let me know about this?"

"Sweets said we should wait until after Angela had her baby," Zack said. "I wasn't certain that was the correct decision, but I haven't worked for you in quite some time – I deferred to him in this instance."

"Does nobody care that this lunatic just tried to _strangle _me?" Greta asked.

Brennan was pleased to note that no one – not even Zack – really seemed to care at all.

"So, what did you find out?" she demanded. "Where is Lindley?"

"Dead," Sweets said promptly. "Which is why we didn't feel the need to come get you right away. Greta here shot him and dumped his body – so, no reason to worry about Lindley coming back."

She looked at Greta skeptically. "How did you shoot him? Where's the gun?"

"I dumped it with the body," the woman said promptly.

"What about the Gormogon skeleton?" Brennan asked.

"I don't know where that is," Greta said. She glanced off to the side for just an instant. Brennan noted a sudden change in Sweets' demeanor before she could address the issue herself.

"So, you left here with the Gormogon skeleton," Sweets said, appearing suddenly skeptical himself. "And then what happened? Lindley was already gone when you left here, right? That was the chain of events?" He looked to Brennan to corroborate this.

She nodded. "We received word that Lindley had escaped, and then Booth and Cam went to the jail to question the constable. The boys and I hid; the rest of the team took their assigned positions. At which point, Zack and Hodgins left Greta alone with the skeleton so that she could ostensibly change her clothes. Twenty minutes later, they realized that she – and the skeleton – were gone."

"Exactly," Greta said. "Me and Paul had a rendezvous set up – that was the plan. We'd meet up, take the skeleton, and leave the island. We met up all right, but then I killed him."

Brennan felt her frustration begin to rise again.

"But why would you kill him if he was your partner?" Zack asked, before she could ask the same question. She felt a pang of regret for him – now that he knew the truth, her former intern looked more baffled than she had ever seen him. "That isn't logical – particularly if that meant you would be left here to somehow move the skeleton off the island alone."

"Unless you were already off the island when you killed him," Brennan said. Greta's eyes slid from hers.

"Whoa – I saw that!" Sweets said triumphantly, pointing at Greta's face in a distinctly non-professional manner. "Now we're getting somewhere. You and Paul plan to leave the island together. You get the skeleton on a boat and are getting ready to head off into the sunset, but… Then what happens?" He studied her for a few seconds. "He wanted to come back, didn't he? Said you guys needed to come back to get his kids?"

Even Brennan could tell by the look of annoyance that touched Greta's face that this had, indeed, been the case.

"So, that's it," Sweets said. "Case solved. The skeleton's on some boat somewhere, and so's Lindley's body. And, presumably, the gun Greta here killed him with."

Brennan glanced out the window. The snow was still coming down, but the sun was up now. Still no word from Booth or Erin. Did any of this have anything to do with where they were now?

"Why did you come back to the island then?" Zack asked. "And where is the boat now?"

Greta shook her head. She crossed her arms over her chest and sat down with her jaw set. "I plead the fifth. I'm not answering anything else until I get a lawyer – and if anybody else lays a hand on me, I'm gonna sue every one of you."

Brennan was about to demonstrate just how little impact the threat of litigation actually had on her when Sweets pulled her aside, his hand at her arm.

"Dr. Brennan, violence really isn't going to solve anything here."

"I disagree," she said. "It will almost certainly relieve some of my tension."

He looked at her with a combination of exasperation and disappointment. "That's not what I meant."

He went on to explain in excruciating detail exactly what he _did _mean, but Brennan wasn't listening. She felt as though she might explode if someone didn't do _something _soon – if no one else was willing to put themselves on the line, she most certainly was. She was getting ready to tell Sweets exactly that when something Zack was saying got through to her.

"Could you repeat that?" she asked.

He looked troubled. He looked first at Greta, then at Brennan. "I said – Who is the master? I could believe Greta might make an acceptable apprentice, but Lindley certainly was no master. It would have to be someone older. Based on the lore attached to this island, I would assume it would be someone with a long history here."

"There was a caretaker who originally found the skeleton, wasn't there?" Sweets asked.

They directed their attention to Zoe, still at the front desk. She looked up when she realized they were staring at her.

"You need something?"

"The caretaker who found the skeleton – the one you told us about when we first arrived," Brennan said. "Have you heard anything from him?"

"Mosby?" the woman asked. She shook her head. "Not a word. I'm not too worried, though – he's been known to go off for weeks at a time. Him and his brother are like night and day – anything the Constable tells you, you can take to the bank. Mosby'd stick you with a plug nickel every damn time."

Sweets looked from Zack to Brennan to Greta, then back again. His eyes had widened, his eyebrows climbing higher up his forehead.

"What?" Brennan asked.

"So, this Constable Mills," Sweets said, directing his attention at Greta when he said the name. "I guess he's probably been here all along, right – his family's from the island?"

"Oh yeah," Zoe agreed. "They were one of the founding families."

Greta was looking at the floor now. She'd gone very still.

"And he's still not answering anybody's calls?" Sweets asked.

Brennan thought for a moment. Mills had said Lindley took his keys – but if they had staged the escape, planning to meet later… She was still trying to work through this latest piece of the puzzle when Diggs came into the lobby. He was dressed in winter gear, and if the look on his face was anything to go by, he had also tired of waiting for the cavalry to arrive.

"Tripp said we need to wait here," Sweets said the moment he saw the reporter standing there, clearly intent on leaving.

Diggs was unshaven and obviously hadn't slept, but his blue eyes were clear when he looked at Brennan.

"I know this is an asshole move – believe me. I should care more about an inn full of people; the good of the many, et cetera, et cetera." He tossed a heavy-looking pack over his shoulder and shook his head ruefully. "But Solomon – she doesn't think sometimes. And I can't just…" he trailed off. For a moment, he looked genuinely confounded.

"I'm all she's got. I have to try and find her," he finished lamely.

"I'm going with you," Brennan announced.

The others looked at her in surprise, and Sweets immediately prepared to launch into another lecture. She held up her hand.

"Lindley is dead," she said. "Though we have no definitive proof, I believe Greta is telling the truth on that count. And since the skeleton is no longer here, there doesn't appear to be a reason for the Constable to return. Thus, everyone at the inn is relatively safe."

Diggs looked relieved at the announcement. Before the others could volunteer to come with them, however, Brennan cut them off.

"Though I posit that everything I've just said is very likely to be true, it's just a hypothesis at this point. If I'm incorrect, everyone else should remain here and follow Booth's original plan to keep the boys – and everyone else – safe. In the meantime, continue to try and contact the Coast Guard, and provide them with a description of Constable Mills and his boat."

She looked at Diggs, uncertain as to whether or not he would agree to her conditions. "That means you and I will have to go alone."

He nodded readily. "Fine with me - whatever. As long as we do something. We saddle up, you guys hold down the fort."

For the first time since she'd watched Booth's boat disappear into the mist, Brennan felt a spark of hope. Her partner may be in trouble, but at least now she was doing something to find him.

_TBC_


	25. Chapter TwentyFour

_Chapter Twenty-Four_

"Maybe there's a secret compartment," Erin said.

She was groping the floorboards, crawling around feeling blindly for God only knew what. Booth tried to move, but gave that up as a terrible fucking idea when the pain shot through him again.

"We're _in _the secret compartment," he said. "Besides – we're in a boat. You open anything up down here and I'm pretty sure we're cooked, 'cause I'm sure as hell not up to swimming right now."

She stopped looking and sat back down, her back against the bunk where Booth was still lying down. He could breathe, at least, but he was sweating bullets and every move he made felt like it would be his last. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on something besides the pain.

"We're still alive," Erin said.

He waited for her to add something a little more hopeful to that statement, but she just went quiet again. She still looked like hell, but Booth noted that she'd managed to keep down the baked beans she'd eaten earlier – that was something, anyway. Every so often when she thought he wasn't looking, he could see that she was struggling; it wasn't all that long ago that he'd been breathing life into her lungs after all, sure she was a goner. The adrenaline may have kicked in for her now, but she was due for one hell of a crash once it was gone.

"Have you thought of names?" he said, out of the blue. If he spent anymore time obsessing about how far up shit creek they actually were, he was sure he'd go nuts. He thought he'd have to clarify his question when Erin didn't answer right away, but then her hand fell to her stomach.

"Adam," she said, quiet now. She looked back over her shoulder at him. "It was my dad's name. And I know what you're thinking – it's probably bad form to name your kid after a guy who went nuts and killed himself."

She bit her lip, thinking that through before she continued. Her voice was light, but he could tell how much it bothered her saying those words.

"He wasn't always that way, you know. I mean… Before the fire, he was a good father. A good man."

Booth waited for her to go on, but she seemed lost in memories. A few minutes passed in silence, but then the pain in his chest kicked in again and he didn't quite have the strength to just leave her to her thoughts.

"You started to tell me before why you were out here," he said.

Another couple seconds passed before she turned around to look at him. She sat with her knees curled up to her chest, locked in a debate he could almost read on her face. Tell the dying guy the whole truth and distract him for a few minutes longer, or keep it to herself? He tried to shift and just about blacked out from the pain, and the look on his face seemed to be enough to make up her mind. Sharing time it was.

"I inherited the island," she began. "The letter came about a month ago, but I haven't been living with Michael for a while… I just got it last week."

"So, you decided you had to come visit in the middle of a blizzard," he said. "Yeah, now I get it. Good thinking."

She rolled her green eyes and gave him a pretty little smile. "Are you gonna let me finish or what?" She took a big breath and let it out nice and slow. "There was something in with the paperwork the lawyer sent me – some pictures."

He was still lost so far, but he didn't have the energy to keep prodding her.

"The gist of it is this: That cult suicide where thirty-four people died on the island supposedly in a suicide pact, after which my father lost it completely?" She was watching him now, gauging his response. He got the feeling she hadn't told anybody this stuff yet. "It turns out, it might not have been suicide after all."

That got his attention. "And if it wasn't suicide, you think people might start pointing fingers at your old man?"

She touched her index finger to her nose. "Bingo."

"But you know he didn't do it," he said. There was no hiding the doubt in his voice.

"Yeah, I do know, as a matter of fact," she said. Her back was up a little now. "He wouldn't do something like that."

"That still doesn't explain why you had to go out there in the middle of a blizzard, though."

This time, he was sure she wasn't going to answer. She scratched at her hand and played with her shirt sleeve and then, finally, she looked at him.

"I got a call," she said. "Someone who said he knew what happened out there. He said to meet me out here last night." She pushed the hair back from her face, her eyes suddenly dark. "I need to know. I knew everybody who died out there – I grew up with those kids. I went to that church. I lost everything when it burned." Her eyes filled with tears, but she brushed them away so fast Booth wondered if he'd actually seen them at all. She sat up a little straighter. "This guy knew things nobody else could have about that day. I couldn't miss the chance to talk to him."

Just the look on her face told Booth she was telling the truth. Before he could ask any follow-up questions, though, there was the sound of the boat's trapdoor opening above them. They'd been using a little battery-powered lantern for light, but now full sun shone down on them. Booth blinked in the glare, a whole new dread taking hold.

"Not dead yet?" the Constable asked Booth. He whistled softly. "I knew you were a tough son of a bitch first time I laid eyes on you. That's enough lying around, though – I need you two up here."

Erin glanced at Booth, then back up toward the constable. "Are you nuts? He can't move – right now the only thing keeping him alive is a fucking juice box straw in his chest."

"Not my problem," he said shortly. He peered in a little closer, and Booth could see the gun he had levered at them both. "Get up or I'll just shoot you now. Makes no difference to me. One way or the other, we're getting off this boat."

Booth had been in pain before. He'd been tortured, he'd been shot, he'd been blown up - it was hardly new to him. But this was a whole different level of agony; he couldn't even think straight, let alone move. Erin sat down beside him on the bunk and gently picked up his arm and put it around her shoulders.

"Just think about Brennan, all right?" she said. "You and her in a nice little house together, the gorgeous babies you'll have one of these days." She looked at him intently. "I'm serious, okay? I told you before: We're not dying today. Now try for nice, shallow breaths, and no sudden moves."

He nodded. Somehow, she got them both on their feet. Getting up into the cabin of the boat was another story, though – it was just a matter of climbing two wooden stairs, but it might as well have been Everest.

"What are we waiting for?" the Constable asked. Booth could see him now, standing up there at the edge of the trapdoor. He was dressed in heavy winter gear, his shoulder in a sling, his face bruised and bloodied from the jail break he and Lindley had faked the day before. "Come on up here, son. You're a hell of a lot more valuable to me than a second string reporter like Erin there, trust me."

Booth just stood there at the bottom of the stairs, looking up; trying to figure out how the hell they were supposed to get out of this.

"Did you know he was gonna shoot you?" Booth asked. It was hard getting any volume behind his voice, what with the whole collapsed fucking lung and all, but he could tell Mills heard him. A shadow crossed the old man's face.

"You didn't, did you?" Booth continued. "That's why you killed him – he took things too far. Pissed you off. And now you've got two hostages you can't handle and a blizzard that's apparently never gonna end, and no clue what happens next."

For a few seconds, Booth thought he had the other man on the ropes; he was on the right track, at least. It didn't last long, though, before Mills shrugged it off.

"The snow'll end soon – and right now it's a gift. As long as it keeps snowing, nobody'll be out to look for me. Or you."

Booth wouldn't bet on that, but he didn't say anything. If somebody was coming for them, he didn't want to blow it. The hard part was gonna be staying alive until that happened.

"Now come on, dammit," Mills said. "I'm not waiting here all day."

Just two steps; he could do that. Booth managed to get his left foot on the first step, sweat dripping down his face. The problem wasn't so much the pain as knowing that if he moved wrong, the straw Erin had stuck inside him to keep his lungs clear would slip right out – it was hard to show much enthusiasm about life with that kind of threat hanging over his head. Still, he used Erin's shoulder as a crutch and managed to make it up the first step.

His head cleared the trapdoor. Booth looked around the pilothouse, stopping at sight of the sizable pool of blood not far from where he was standing. His blood, he assumed. He swallowed past another knot in his throat. Mills was getting antsy – the skeleton was nowhere in sight, and the old man kept looking out the window. Snow was still coming down, but it looked like it was slowing. Booth had no clue what time it was, but his guess was early afternoon. Bones would know something was wrong by now. Much as he didn't want her to put herself in danger, he had to admit he was really hoping she had somebody out there looking for them.

It wasn't the time to try something – both he and Erin were goners if he did. He took the next step up. Mills stood just far enough away that Booth couldn't get hold of him if he decided to try something – not that there was anything he could try in his condition, anyway. Instead, Booth concentrated on just holding himself steady. He glanced down to his left, where Erin was standing with his arm around her, trying to keep them both up. She somehow managed to look vulnerable as hell and tough as nails all at once; she gave him an encouraging smile, but he could see the fear in her eyes all the same.

"You're almost there, Booth. You can do this."

Booth nodded. She was right - he could do this. He was just getting ready to make that final awkward crawl up above deck when he saw a change on Mills' face: some flicker of spite that sure as hell wasn't a good sign. Then, the old man leveled the gun down below again, where Erin was still doing her damnedest to keep Booth on his feet.

Before he could even react, Booth saw the man's finger squeeze the trigger – in slow motion almost, like some cheesy seventies flick. The explosion so close to Booth's head nearly shattered his eardrum as Mills fired twice in quick succession, straight down into the cabin below. Erin screamed, and Booth's knees went out from under him as soon as she wasn't there to hold him up. His heart rocketed up into his throat and his chest caught fire again.

"What the fuck are you doing? Erin!" The old man was smiling, his eyes hard; Booth felt that fragile thread that had been keeping him conscious so far start to fray when Erin didn't answer.

_**TBC**_


	26. Chapter TwentyFive

_**And... We're back again, trucking on toward the thrilling conclusion. I'll be giving you guys at least a couple of chapters a day for the remainder of the weekend, and we'll have this puppy wrapped up in no time. Thanks as always for the wonderful feedback, and sorry if I've caused premature aging in any of you guys. I know it's been a rocky road for these guys lately!**  
><em>

_Chapter Twenty-Five_

Diggs procured an ATV to take them to the boat he said was waiting for them. Brennan finally got the latest weather report just before they left, and wasn't at all pleased: The storm system that had ravaged the island for the past twenty-four hours would be passing soon, but a cold front was moving in on its heels. Less snow, but temperatures were expected to drop well below zero, with a wind chill that would make any time spent outside a deadly venture.

Brennan thought again of the pain she'd felt in her chest nearly an hour ago now. She had no explanation for that, but she was having a difficult time simply dismissing it. Booth would be certain it meant something – he would attribute it to some psychic link, or a sign from God. Naturally, Brennan wasn't willing to go that far, but until Booth was back to act as the less rational partner in their duo, she decided she would simply have to play both roles. If it were Booth, she had no doubt that he would follow that mysterious feeling in his chest to the ends of the earth if it was her safety that was in question.

By ATV, the ride over snowy roads and snowier fields to the other side of the island took just under fifteen minutes. Brennan held onto Diggs' sides and kept her head down to avoid the icy snow flying at them, the cold already biting despite the layers she wore. When they reached their destination, she was pleasantly surprised by the vessel that awaited them; she had been expecting just another fishing boat, but this was closer to a trawler. The engine was already roaring when she and Diggs climbed aboard.

"Whose boat is this?" she shouted above the noise.

"An old buddy of mine," he shouted back. "This thing has fished the waters from here to Alaska and back – not much keeps her grounded."

He nodded toward a door leading to a set of stairs descending below deck. "Go on in out of the cold – I'll be right down."

She felt a sudden twinge of apprehension. How much did she really know about this man? Angela might have trusted him fifteen years ago, but Angela didn't have the best track record when it came to trustworthy men, historically speaking. Diggs apparently noticed the reaction, because he offered a reassuring smile.

"I'm just going up to tell Seth we're ready to go – you can come meet him if you want."

"I'd like that." Diggs didn't seem offended by her obvious skepticism, at least, which she found a more concrete basis for trust than a mere smile.

He led them up to the pilothouse, at the top of the boat looking down on roiling seas. A portly, surprisingly young man – early thirties at most, Brennan suspected – wearing coveralls and a winter hat grinned at them both as they came up the steps.

"You ready for this?" he shouted. A cigarette dangled from his lips, a scruffy beard on his cherubic face.

"Seth, this is Dr. Brennan – her partner's one of the folks we're missing right now."

"We'll find him," the man said, with utmost confidence. He shook his head ruefully. "Leave it to Erin, huh?" he asked, directing the question at Diggs. "The girl attracts trouble like flies to a shithouse."

Diggs glanced at Brennan, obviously concerned that she might be offended. She wasn't in the least.

"Do you know where we're going?" she asked.

Again, Seth glanced at Diggs. "Payson Isle, I'm guessin'?"

"It's as good a start as any," Diggs agreed.

The engine roared even more loudly and the great boat creaked, belching diesel fumes as Seth eased it away from the dock. He nodded back toward the pilothouse door.

"You two go on down below, try and keep warm. I'll let you know when we're getting close."

Brennan looked out at the grey horizon and the seemingly endless stretch of black ocean before them and was overcome with a sense of hopelessness. She pushed the feeling aside. Booth had only been gone a few hours; there was no reason to believe he wasn't fine. In all likelihood, he was just waiting out the storm on one of the islands until the weather cleared.

Diggs opened the pilothouse door once more, his hand at the small of Brennan's back as he led them outside once more.

"We'll find them," he said.

She wished she felt half as certain.

* * *

><p>The smell of diesel fuel was worse in the close quarters below deck. Given the choice between the fumes and the possibility of freezing to death in the open air, Brennan was hard pressed to make her decision. She and Diggs sat facing one another at a small table in the corner of the room, surrounded by brightly-painted pipes and mysterious-looking gauges. Diggs had a notepad and pen with him, and continually jotted down notes as the ride progressed.<p>

During one such episode, Brennan peered across the table with frank curiosity, trying to decipher his handwriting.

"What are you writing?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said quickly. He looked up, pushing the notepad aside as he met her eye. "Just scribbling – it helps me think. Sorry. I'm usually better company."

"You're concerned about your friend," she said. "I can understand that."

"Well, yeah, but lapsing into catatonia almost never helps these things."

She noticed that he didn't actually put the pen and paper away, though he did refocus his attention.

"So – change of subject is in order, I think." He smiled, though he was still visibly distracted. "What about you and Booth – how'd you two meet?"

"Work," she said. "He asked for my assistance on a case." She found it impossible not to smile at the memory: Booth in his staid tie and his government-issue haircut, his eyes catching hers across the lecture hall that first day.

"How long have you been together?"

"Five years." She hesitated. "Oh – you mean romantically, or professionally?"

"Is there a difference?"

She laughed outright. "Sometimes I wonder," she confessed. "I think that's the reason the relationship has been successful for me thus far – I've never been very good at separating the professional and the personal. With Booth, I don't have to."

His smile was real this time. "You have a great laugh," he said. "Booth's a lucky guy."

The statement might have seemed like a romantic overture from someone else, but Diggs seemed far too distracted for her to find it any kind of threat. His eyes drifted back to his notepad. Sensing she was about to lose him and not ready to be left alone with her thoughts once again, Brennan grasped for another topic to keep him interested.

"Angela told me you used to be Erin's mentor."

"Yeah. Something like that." He fell silent once more.

"I've dated mentors before," she said without thinking. The moment it was out, she realized just how offensive Diggs might find the statement. Instead of looking annoyed with her, however, he leaned back at her with frank curiosity.

"How'd it work out?"

"Not that well," she admitted. "Though the mentors I chose were typically somewhat egomaniacal. They certainly never seemed as concerned with my welfare as you are with Erin's."

He hedged at the statement, his eyes sliding from hers. "It's complicated. We've been friends a long time – that's all it is. She's married. And… Well, nuts. And almost a decade younger than me. We're just friends," he repeated more quietly, gazing out the streaked window at the forbidding waters that surrounded them.

How many times had she made that argument with respect to she and Booth in those early years, Brennan wondered? Had it sounded as hollow and unconvincing coming from her lips?

Seth sounded the horn up top and both Brennan and Diggs jumped, startled at the sudden noise.

"We must be close," Diggs said. He got up quickly and Brennan followed suit.

As they returned above deck, a blast of cold air hit so hard that it felt as though the wind had gone straight through her. She made to follow Diggs wherever his destination might be, but stopped when she saw him staring out toward the horizon, an expression very much like despair clear on his face.

She followed his gaze.

Barely visible above the waterline, Brennan's heart dropped at sight of the broken bow of a speedboat being pummeled by the waves.

_**TBC**_


	27. Chapter TwentySix

_Chapter Twenty-Six_

Booth's knees went out from under him the second Erin wasn't there to hold him up. A sharp pain in his chest made his breath catch; of course, the sharp pain in his chest turned out to be nothing compared to the agony of that unexpected breath.

Bones' face flashed in his head. This was it – the end of the road. He thought of the kids they'd never have; that blue-eyed baby girl he was always chasing around in his dreams.

He started to fall backward – down the steps, back into the compartment where now he and a woman he barely knew would probably end up dying together. He prayed that Bones would find some peace without him. That Parker knew just how important he was.

And then – just as he felt blackness start to seep in – Booth felt someone behind him. Someone pushing him back up – gentle hands at his back, a sharp shoulder jabbing into him, trying to hold him steady. The voice, of course, was anything but gentle.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Erin shouted, almost in his ear. If he hadn't been hanging on to life by a thread, Booth might have been a little annoyed. She was yelling at the Constable, still standing at the edge of the trapdoor gazing down at them.

"I just don't want you two thinking you can take off without me," the man said. Still with the gun. Still with the grin. Booth was really starting to hate this guy.

Booth tried to look back over his shoulder. Erin was doing her damnedest to keep him up, but it wasn't really a fair fight since Booth was roughly twice her size. His eyes caught on two neat holes in the far wall of the little below-deck compartment, where water was already starting to pour through in a thin stream.

Erin pushed Booth up until he was almost vertical again. "Can you stand?" she asked.

He couldn't even breathe right that second, so standing seemed like a stretch. Still, he didn't see that he had much of a choice.

"Yeah," he said. He tried to nod, but stopped when just that simple motion was enough to make him almost pass out.

Erin got him on his feet again, and the two of them half-crawled out of the compartment and back above deck. Booth blinked in the sunlight's glare. His head swam. The pain was steady now – a jagged knife edge in his chest that made thinking damned near impossible. The tiny straw Erin had put in to try and keep the fluid from building up in his lungs again had gotten fucked up; it was still there, but he could feel that pressure in his lungs again, that awful feeling like he was drowning from the inside out.

Erin was saying something to the Constable, but there was a rushing in Booth's ears and spots in front of his eyes and, all in all, it was hard to focus much on the chatter around him. The constable was giving them directions – that's all Booth really knew. He leaned against the wall, trying not to breathe, while the Constable held his gun tight on Erin's forehead and she got paler and the boat started to sway. The even keel Booth had managed when it was just he and Erin was slipping fast – he was too hot and too cold all at once, and when he went to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, it came away bloody.

"He says we have to go," Erin said to him. Booth tried to focus on that simple statement, but he couldn't make sense of it.

"To move – Booth, we have to move. Can you take a step? Just one step at a time."

He tried – he really did. Seeley Booth was no quitter, that was for damned sure. He managed to lift one thousand-pound foot all on his own. When he brought it back down again, though, his whole body went with it.

He ended up lying on the deck, gasping for air that he knew wasn't coming anytime soon. Still, it was such a sweet relief not to be moving that for a second or two he didn't even care about the pain. Somewhere above the floating and the rushing in his ears and the knowledge that he would never get up again, he realized that Erin was crying. The Constable pulled her toward the door and dragged her off the boat, and he heard her yelling about how they couldn't just leave him behind. "Him" being Booth – he understood that much, at least.

Booth closed his eyes again. He couldn't move. Couldn't follow. Couldn't save himself, let alone anyone else.

Bones was there, waiting for him in the darkness. She brushed the hair back from his head; he could smell her soap and feel the warmth of her hands.

"Hang on, Booth," she whispered to him.

He could feel the blood leaking from his chest, soaking the floor beneath him. Below deck, he heard water rushing in, filling the boat. The wind howled. He thought of the lives he'd taken over the years – all the bullets he'd fired. Every damned one of them had hit their mark. He could still see the faces.

He tried to get Bones' face back – the smell of her shampoo, the way her lips felt against his skin.

_I'll find you_, she whispered to him.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. Water was rising, and his blood was draining fast.

"I can't wait," he whispered to nothing.

He let the darkness take him.

_**TBC**_


	28. Chapter TwentySeven

_Chapter Twenty-Seven_

"Is that one of their boats?" Brennan asked. There was an edge of panic to her voice that she couldn't hide. She and Diggs peered over the railing of Seth's trawler, both of them transfixed by the husk of what had been a boat not so long before.

"I think so. The numbers there?" He pointed toward a scrap of the boat that amounted to little more than driftwood. "That's Eli's boat – we came out to Monhegan in it together a few days ago."

He'd gotten very pale. Brennan understood his reaction, but she continued to scan the horizon regardless. Heartless as it may have been, the reality was that this was Erin's boat; thus far, she'd seen no evidence of a –

She stopped.

Brennan's mouth went dry as a surge of bile climbed her esophagus. Seth sounded the horn in the same moment that she spotted it, washed up on the rocks of Payson Isle:

A second boat.

"They could be on the island," Diggs said when he realized what she was looking at. "Booth sees Erin's boat get wrecked; he saves her, and they manage to get ashore…" He stopped and swallowed with apparent difficulty, his fingers keying some indecipherable message on the side of his jeans.

"They could just be on the island," he finally finished. "Just camped out, waiting for us to come for them."

He didn't look as though he believed his own theory. It was possible, though – there was no sign of bodies in the water. No sign of anything, except those two wrecked boats.

The most reasonable course of action was to go there. Seth was already preparing a dinghy to get them to shore, the chains screaming in the cold as the boat was lowered into the water.

Brennan's chest still hurt – a phantom pain that she couldn't identify. Diggs was watching her as though he suspected she might be having some kind of physical episode. Booth's face flashed in her mind.

She blinked, and tried to dismiss a feeling that was suddenly all-consuming:

He wasn't here.

But that was ludicrous. Feeling had nothing to do with something like this – she needed to follow the evidence, wherever it might take her. The evidence suggested that, if he were indeed alive, the highest probability was that this was where he and Erin had landed.

"Brennan?" Diggs prompted. "Seth finally got hold of the Coast Guard – they're on their way out. I still want to go out there now, though. You don't have to come – "

"I don't think they're here." The words came out before she could stop them. Diggs looked unnerved by the statement – or perhaps it was her demeanor that was throwing him off. It was certainly having a profound effect on her.

"We don't know that – they could've made it," he argued.

Brennan shook her head impatiently. "No, you don't understand - I believe he's still alive. I just don't believe he's here."

Diggs' forehead furrowed in confusion. "I'm not sure I'm following you – their boats are right there. If they're not on the island and they're not..." He didn't finish the sentence. "Where exactly do you think they went?"

He had to shout to be heard over the wind and the diesel engine. It was too cold to survive in these waters for any length of time - Brennan knew that. She wasn't an idiot. Diggs was waiting for an answer, but she found she didn't have one. She thought of Booth again. He would believe.

He would know what to do, and he would have to courage to do it regardless of how illogical it might seem.

"If they made it ashore, they're safe long enough to wait for the Coast Guard," she said suddenly. She felt out of breath and utterly ungrounded, just saying the words. "Is there another island nearby? I'd like to continue searching."

Diggs hesitated. "They could be hurt – if they're here on this island, we might not have a lot of time to wait for somebody else." He stopped, apparently seeing something on her face that gave him pause. "What are you thinking?"

"I don't know," she admitted. It was a troubling thing to say in the best of circumstances; it seemed much worse today. "Just… _Is _there another island nearby?"

There was another brief pause before something flickered on Diggs' face. "There's one about two miles southeast of here – mostly abandoned." His eyes had widened, an almost imperceptible hitch in his breathing. "The Mills family owns land over there. They used to have a little airstrip."

Brennan nodded, for the first time utterly resolute. "I'd like to look there."

Diggs ran up to tell Seth of their decision. Brennan remained on deck, staring unseeingly at the abandoned wreckage in the waters below – the only evidence she had that Booth had been here at all. The pain in her chest sharpened to a deep, empty ache.

Booth would believe this was real. For now, just in this moment, Brennan felt she had no choice but to do the same.

_**TBC**_


	29. Chapter TwentyEight

_Chapter Twenty-Eight_

Water filled the cabin now – Booth could hear it. The boat was cold. _He _was cold. The only perk he could find in any of this was that at least the pain wasn't as bad as it had been. That usually meant he was about five steps from death's door, but it was such a relief to not be in agony that he didn't even care anymore.

Bones still talked to him in his head. He wondered what it would have been like – the two of them together for the next fifty years. Getting old together. Watching Parker grow up. Watching their own kids grow up. If heaven were _really _heaven, he'd have a version of Bones waiting for him up there – he wouldn't have to wait for her. Wouldn't have to worry that all her atheist rambling was gonna land her on the wrong side of things when judgment got handed down. She'd just be there, in a house with a pool and a barbecue and a big yard, waiting for him. Parker and Dosha would be there. His bad back and his bad knees would be good again… Hell, maybe he'd play hockey up there with the saints.

All that sounded all right. But then, he started thinking about Bones. Not his Heaven Bones, but the one he was leaving behind. The baby they wouldn't have; the house they'd never build; all those things he'd miss with Parker. When he closed his eyes, he could see her – eight months' pregnant, big as a house, the two of them putting together a crib or lying in bed fighting over baby names.

He blinked back tears. He put his hands flat on the deck and used every ounce of strength he had left in his body to push himself up.

Any other woman, and Booth would know they'd be all right – he was a great guy, sure, but he wasn't so egotistical as to think there was no getting over him.

Except where Bones was concerned. Bones wouldn't get over this.

He got to his hands and knees, but the pain was back in a flash - worse than before, so sharp that all he wanted to do was give up. He started to cough, leaving behind a spattering of blood on the deck. The boat creaked and moaned as the water kept rising.

Bones would be looking for him. She would find him – he knew she would. _I knew you wouldn't give up. _

He just had to stay alive until she got here.

_**TBC**_


	30. Chapter TwentyNine

_Chapter Twenty-Nine_

Seth circled around Payson Isle in his monstrous trawler and twenty minutes later, battling the winds and the current, they reached the island Diggs had spoken of. The pain in Brennan's chest had sharpened until she could scarcely breathe. She stood at the helm searching the horizon, still trying to justify her decision. Or quantify it, even. If Booth was injured as Diggs had suggested, waiting for her to come to his aid on the island they'd just left behind…

What if he died because she suddenly stopped listening to reason, instead choosing to pursue an idiotic hunch that could well cost Booth and Erin their lives?

She clenched her gloved hands tightly around the railing, and tried to imagine Booth in all the scenarios when she loved him the most: barefoot in her kitchen making breakfast, sweatpants hanging low on his hips. Dancing with her in the moonlight. Whispering to her, his body poised above hers.

_No. _She wasn't doing this, dammit.

She blinked back tears and focused once more on the horizon.

The wind seemed to die down suddenly. For just a moment, the snow and fog cleared.

Straight ahead, not more than fifty yards away, a boat was tied to this new island's tiny dock.

Brennan's breath caught in her throat. She grabbed Diggs' sleeve and pointed.

"I think that's them."

* * *

><p>It was clear when they got closer that the boat at the dock was indeed the one that reportedly belonged to the Constable. Equally clear was the fact that the boat was taking on water at a dangerous rate. If someone was inside, whoever that someone was would need to get out soon.<p>

Brennan knew she should be more cautious, but Diggs didn't appear anymore interested in personal safety than she was as he steered Seth's small dinghy through the waves and pulled up alongside the Constable's larger fishing boat.

Brennan drew her gun. "This is the police," she shouted. It was a lie, but only a marginal one. "We have your boat surrounded – come out with your hands up."

Diggs raised an eyebrow at her.

"While that technically may not be true, it seems wiser than going aboard with no warning whatsoever," she explained.

"Good thinking," he assured her – though she thought there was a possibility he was making fun of her.

Despite her announcement, no one emerged from the boat's cabin. Brennan only had patience enough to wait two minutes before she clambered aboard, her gun still held tightly in one hand. Diggs was behind her when she reached the pilothouse door. She flung it open, her heart hammering in her aching chest, and then stopped at the sight that greeted her.

"Booth?" The word came out barely a whisper as tears flooded her eyes. She couldn't make her legs move. Diggs took her arm, steadying her.

Booth lay on the floor of the cabin, half immersed in sea water. His shirt was soaked with blood, his face completely devoid of color.

Diggs knelt beside him, but Brennan found herself rooted to the spot. He was dead. She'd been led here by some phantom pain in her chest that she couldn't identify and would never even try to explain – all this way to find… What?

"He's got a pulse," Diggs said.

Brennan stared at him, uncomprehending.

"Brennan – he's still alive. Come on – get over here." Diggs straightened as Brennan took his place, trying to assess what seemed to her almost certainly fatal wounds.

"The paramedics should be here any minute. And skies have cleared enough that they should be able to get a MediVac out here," Diggs said. He looked around the boat. For the first time, Brennan noticed something unhinged in his eyes.

"Do you think…" he motioned to a large pool of blood at one side of the cabin. "I mean, that's a lot of blood. Do you think it all came from him?"

She remembered suddenly that Booth wasn't the only one they'd been searching for. She shook her head, though she couldn't take her eyes from Booth.

"I don't know," she admitted.

Diggs turned his back on her. "Erin!" he shouted. There was something ragged to his voice that she hadn't heard before. He peered through a trapdoor leading to a compartment below and continued to call for his friend, then went to search the rest of the boat.

Brennan remained where she was, Booth's broken body in her arms. A crude incision in his chest with a small, bloody plastic straw taped to it suggested that someone had performed a crude thoracotomy. She listened to his chest, but the tell-tale rattle of fluid build-up was absent. She smoothed the hair from his forehead and whispered to him while she waited for the paramedics to arrive and Diggs continued his search for Erin.

* * *

><p>Brennan had no idea how long she waited before the paramedics arrived. She monitored Booth's vital signs, her body cradling his, oblivious to the cold or any other minor physical discomfort. Though the boat had clearly taken on water below, it seemed to be stable for the moment. For the short amount of time she would have to wait for paramedics, she decided it was wiser to keep Booth still until they absolutely had to leave, rather than move him and risk further injury.<p>

How had things gone so wrong? This was supposed to have been a simple case - a relaxing weekend, providing everyone with an opportunity to reconnect. If she believed in curses - which she did not - she would think there was some kind of pall over she and Booth.

"You aren't going to die," she told him. He didn't answer her. She imagined what he would say, if he would just wake up.

_What kind of talk is that, Bones? Of course I'm not gonna die - jeez. _She tried to think logically, but she kept coming back to the same scenario. What would she do if he didn't survive? Would she be the one expected to tell Rebecca and Jared and Pops? What about all of his belongings? She couldn't imagine going back to her apartment without him; picking through his clothing, trying to decide where everything should go.

They should have talked about this - there's was a dangerous line of work. How had they not had this conversation?

She would be fine, she told herself. Of course she would. She would go back to work. Back to the Jeffersonian, cataloging bones. She would get through it. People dying of a broken heart was pure hyperbole. Hearts could not break.

She pushed such maudlin thoughts aside and pulled herself together. Booth was still alive; there was every chance that he would survive this. Rather than wasting time obsessing over what might happen, she focused on trying to make him comfortable until the paramedics arrived. She put her jacket over his bloody frame, staring desperately outside in the hopes that someone would arrive soon. The boat was quiet now - Diggs and Seth had gone to search for Erin. It was just the two of them.

She'd just gotten up to see if she could find something - anything - to warm him further when Booth came to.

"Bones."

She didn't hear him at first - or she thought it was in her head. Whatever the reason, it took a moment before she identified the source of the whisper.

"Don't move!" she said the moment she realized his eyes were open. She knelt beside him, trying to get the ache in her own chest to abate.

"Don't worry, Bones," he whispered to her. It took some time for him to focus his eyes. "I'm not going anywhere."

It was meant to be a joke, but the words made it feel as though something heavy had lodged itself in Brennan's throat.

"Help is on the way," she said. She sat back down and gently pulled his head into her lap.

"Where's Erin?" he asked.

"We don't know." She felt a surge of anger that she pushed aside. Now was hardly the time for a confrontation about his questionable choices regarding that damnable woman.

"I'm sorry, Bones."

She looked at him - really looked at him, studying the depths of his soft brown eyes. They shone with fever or pain or tears, or perhaps some combination of the three. Brennan felt as though someone had reached into her own chest and was squeezing it dry.

"It's all right, Booth."

"No - " He tried to shake his head, but gasped when the pain of movement proved too much. "I shouldn't have gone - I shouldn't've left you. I don't ever want you to feel like you're not my first choice, you know?" He swallowed, his eyes drifting shut for a moment. She kissed his forehead, her own tears wetting his face. "You're the love of my life, Bones."

She felt the first vestiges of panic set in. "You sound as though you're saying goodbye. As though this is the end."

He said nothing to that, but the look on his face conveyed his feelings on the subject quite clearly.

"You are not dying, Booth." She scrubbed at the tears on her face, suddenly furious. "You're the one who convinced me that dating you was worth the risk. And now you just plan on... leaving? This was my point from the beginning - why would anyone willingly set themselves up for something that ultimately only - "

She stopped. Booth's eyes were half-closed, but there was no mistaking the smile on his lips.

"It's not funny. How are you _laughing _at me right now?"

"Trust me, Bones," he whispered. "I'm not laughing." He found her hand and squeezed it with as much strength as she expected he could muster as he looked into her eyes once more. "Only Temperance Brennan would chew a guy out on his death bed."

"You're not on your - "

"Ssh. Bones," he said softly. She couldn't bring herself to look at him. "It's okay, baby. Whether I go or whether I stay, you're gonna be all right. I'll never leave you."

He closed his eyes. In the distance, Brennan heard the steady beat of a helicopter closing in. "You just have to hold on for a little while longer," she whispered.

This time, Booth didn't answer.

_**TBC**_


	31. Chapter Thirty

_**And we're back again, kiddos! Two more chapters tonight, and then the good stuff tomorrow. Not that this isn't good, of course. If you haven't entered my Raffle-Copter fic-tastic giveaway, with prizes including a $25 Amazon gift certificate, a signed print copy of my novel ALL THE BLUE-EYED ANGELS (featuring Erin Solomon and our boy Diggs), or a fic of your choice written by yours truly, then you should definitely mosey on over and enter now, as the big drawing will be held tomorrow. Just head to www[dot]bloodwritesfanfiction[dot]com and click on The Bloodwrites Bones-Tastic March Spectacular. And now, enough plugs... Onto the good stuff. **  
><em>

_Chapter Thirty_

Once you reach a certain age, there are just some things that you come to expect from life. I graduated Wellesley _summa cum laude_; I've set foot on every continent, and more than my fair share of countries on those continents; I survived on Ramen noodles and beer for the better part of my twenties, and was once chased through the African veld by a Bengal tiger. Okay – it was actually a Bengal tiger cub, and I was at a zoo at the time… But you get the idea.

But once I hit thirty, I set all that aside. I was married and gainfully employed and anticipating a smooth journey into middle age. Three things happened to change that:

The first was getting the news that I was pregnant - which wasn't actually a bad thing, believe it or not. The second was finding my husband three days later, standing stark naked in our bedroom with an equally naked coed on her knees in front of him, giving him what was clearly the hummer to end all hummers. That _was _a bad thing. And the third was getting a package in the mail saying I'd inherited the very island I'd been trying to forget from the time I'd watched thirty-four people burn to death on it when I was ten years old.

To say everything derailed from there would be an understatement. In three months flat I'd gone from Erin Solomon, world-class journalist and future suburban mom, to a crazy woman chasing phantom leads in the dead of winter. It was all manageable, too – more or less – until I watched Special Agent Seeley Booth, aka the Greatest American Hero, take a bullet to the chest thanks to my insanity.

And now, hours later, Constable Hilton Mills had a gun to my head and one hand in a vice grip around my arm as he pushed me toward the dock. Booth was lying on the deck, the half-assed thoracotomy I'd performed leaking blood while the boat took on water and the FBI agent I unwittingly led out here faced an early grave alone.

"You'll just shoot me when all this is said and done," I told Mills. "Just do it here, or leave me so that I can at least try and take care of him until the boat sinks and we both die anyway." I was crying, though I was doing my damnedest to pretend I wasn't. Mills didn't look that concerned either way.

"I've got other plans for you," he said. If I hadn't been frozen and terrified, the sheer villainy in his voice might have been comical.

He pushed me forward so hard that I stumbled, catching myself just before I fell, and we got off the miserable fucking boat together. On the dock, the silver skeleton that had started this whole thing was sitting up in an old-fashioned bobsled like some bizarre Tim Burton creation. The bobsled was tied to an ATV. The snow had stopped, but there was at least two feet of the stuff covering the island.

"So what's your plan here?" I asked, nodding toward the ATV. "You can't drive and hold a gun on me at the same time, and I'm guessing you don't want to hand me the reins. It would be smarter to just leave me."

_Or kill me, _I added silently. I didn't actually want to die, though that revelation had been hard won and kind of surprising. It turned out that there were still plenty of things I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Meet the rugrat growing inside me, for one. Tell my husband off. Kiss Diggs one more time, maybe, if I could summon the nerve.

I looked Mills in the eye and tried not to waver. He was already one step ahead of me, though, because he slapped a pair of handcuffs around my left wrist, yanked my hands behind my back, and cinched the cuffs tight. He nodded toward the ATV.

"You'll want to hang on," he said with a smile. Again with the villainy. The man belonged in an old silent film, twisting his pencil-thin mustache and demanding rent from distraught widows.

He put me in front, my body dwarfed by his, his arms on either side of me as he got the ATV started. I'd managed to survive the past few hours without the nausea that had been plaguing me for the past two months, but I could feel it coming back now. My stomach tightened. I'd been running on adrenaline for a while now, but I could feel that wearing off. Mills gunned the ATV engine and we climbed up the steep ridge away from the dock toward what looked like thick forest.

Behind us, the bobsled-riding skeleton bounced over rocks and lurched through snowbanks. I couldn't stop thinking about Booth – a man I barely knew, who'd risked everything to try and bring me back from the brink for reasons I still couldn't figure out. I thought of Diggs, who was probably ready to feed me to the nearest wolves the first chance he got. I was dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt a few sizes too big. I had two pairs of socks on, but no shoes; it wasn't a great wardrobe for arctic temps in the best of situations. Mills drove on, my body jouncing uncomfortably against his and my cuffed hands resting in a fairly intimate position at his crotch. In better circumstances, I might have been able to use that positioning to my advantage; as it was, all I could do was keep my head down and hope that whatever end he had planned for me, he made it quick.

* * *

><p>It took maybe half an hour to get to the center of the island, where we came up on a strategically-placed clearing in the woods and a cute little single-engine airplane waiting on a tiny runway. Mills stopped the ATV. He got off without speaking to me and went straight to his diabolical skeleton trophy, which he untied and carefully hefted into the cockpit. That scene in Airplane with the inflatable co-pilot popped into my head, and a little bubble of hysterical laughter climbed my throat before I stuffed it back down.<p>

Once the skeleton was in, Mills waved his gun at me and nodded toward the plane.

"You're next, princess."

It was freezing - beyond freezing. My toes were numb and my fingers ached. Fatigue had seeped in somewhere along the lines; I thought of Booth pulling me out of the water, breathing life back in my lungs when by all rights I should have died then and there. Chances were good that it would at least be warmer in the plane, but I'm not especially fond of flying. I'll do it, of course, but there are times when it just seems smarter to hang back. Wait for the next train. A single-engine airplane loaded down with cursed skeletons in the middle of nowhere seemed like a good place to draw that line. I shook my head.

"I'm not getting in that thing."

He didn't look amused. He came a step closer, the gun leveled in front of him, aiming toward the center of my chest. When I was a kid, I used to shadow my mom while she tended to the drunk and disorderly in our tiny hometown. Bullets fly a lot more frequently than you'd think in the fishing villages of Maine; I'd known the damage they could do long before I'd seen one drop Booth like a sack of bricks. With that image fresh in my mind, I wasn't keen on a repeat. I looked at the airplane again. My hand landed low on my stomach, which had begun to feel like a touchstone. Adam. What would my kid rather we do: die on the ground or die in the air?

I let Mills lead me to the plane.

It seemed he hadn't planned on having an extra passenger, though; there was room for the skeleton, and there was room for Mills. I'm not huge, but I would definitely need more room than it looked like he had available in the back of that plane. Mills looked at me then back at the plane, doing the math. It was clear after a few seconds that the realization had sunk in; he swallowed hard and pointed the gun at my forehead. I closed my eyes. Rested my hand on my stomach. Waited for the bullet.

It never came. I opened my eyes when I saw Mills walking away. He took the keys from the ATV with him and shot a hole in the engine. Grinned at me. I'd thought maybe he had spared me because I'd gotten to him, sparked some touch of humanity, but it turned out the sadistic bastard just wanted me to suffer as much as possible. He got in the plane and started the engine and I sat there, my frozen arms crossed over my frozen chest, waiting for him to go.

* * *

><p>The second he was gone I started back the way we'd come, following the trail the ATV had left. The snow had soaked my feet by this time; if I didn't have frostbite now, I never would. If it took us half an hour to get here from the dock when we were driving, I had no idea how long it would take when I was half dead walking on frozen stumps I couldn't even feel anymore.<p>

I walked for as long as I could; it could have been five minutes, it could have been twenty. I doubted it was more than that.

I found some shelter surrounded by spruce trees and sat down in the snow. Curled myself into as tight a ball as possible, and lay down. I closed my eyes. Thought of a lullaby my dad used to sing when I couldn't sleep, back when my world consisted of a church on an island and my father's safe arms. I waited to die.

* * *

><p>"Solomon!"<p>

Someone shook me. I was frozen to the bone; it took a while to wake up. I could feel frost on my eyelashes. When I came to Diggs was there, his blue eyes dark with concern. He wrapped me up in his arms and his body was the warmest, safest thing I had felt in my life.

"The paramedics are coming," he said into my ear. He kissed my temple and rocked me in his arms. "Honest to god, Sol, sometimes I don't know whether to kiss you or kill you."

I closed my eyes again, and waited for help to arrive.

_**TBC**_

_**So, I know... That's not Booth! Or even Brennan! But I couldn't just let Erin wander around in the snow with no one to save her, so I figured she merited her own chapter. Don't worry, though - B/B are back next chap!  
><strong>_


	32. Chapter ThirtyOne

_Chapter Thirty-One_

Booth wasn't breathing when the paramedics arrived. Brennan had tried CPR, but every chest compression renewed bleeding that she knew had already put him at risk for hypovolemic shock. She was dimly aware of people speaking around her, and then someone had her by the elbows and was pulling her away. That pain in her chest had become a bottomless ache; she fought for a moment before the rational part of her mind began functioning again and she realized what was happening. That help had finally arrived.

A paramedic wrapped a blanket around her and handed her something lukewarm and overly sweet to drink. He tried to lead her away but Brennan refused to leave until the two medics working on Booth shouted suddenly, triumph and frank surprise clear on their faces.

They had a pulse.

The helicopter ride to the hospital was surreal, as Brennan sat shivering while the paramedics continued to work on Booth. When they'd landed and were inside the hospital, she followed the gurney carrying her partner as far as anyone would allow before a doctor stopped her and asked with clear concern if anyone had examined her.

Brennan shook her head.

A nurse led her to an exam room. She filled out paperwork and then sat on the exam table fully clothed, waiting. The past forty-eight hours seemed like a dream, Monhegan and all its inhabitants some bizarre alternate universe one might find in one of Booth's science fiction movies.

Before any doctor came to check on her, Brennan heard a commotion in the hallway – people arguing, their voices hushed. She blinked back tears of relief, the first thing to penetrate the haze since she'd been pulled away from Booth's unnervingly still body.

Her tribe had arrived.

Cam appeared in the doorway a moment later, clearly not caring in the least about the two nurses admonishing her in the background.

"Okay - wow. You're here." She took a deep, steadying breath. "And you're all right?"

Brennan nodded. She couldn't seem to speak. "Booth…" was all she could manage.

"I know," Cam said, nodding quickly. "We heard."

"We still haven't examined – " a stout male nurse repeated, looking very annoyed.

Cam rounded on the man. "Yeah, I get it – thank you. But right now I'm gonna check on my people, and unless you want to physically drag me out of here, I would suggest you back off and let me do that."

The nurse looked as though he was debating exactly that before he threw up his hands and left in a huff.

"Where's everyone else?" Brennan asked.

She'd no more than said the words before Zack and Sweets appeared at the door.

"You aren't naked, are you?" Zack asked. He had one hand covering his eyes.

"She's not naked, Zack," Cam assured him. He removed his hand warily.

"What about Angela?" Brennan asked, suddenly remembering the chaos she'd left behind in her quest to find Booth.

"She's still in labor," Sweets informed her. "Seven centimeters dilated though, so, y'know, we're hoping…" Cam cast a disapproving look at him. "What? I happen to think this whole process is fascinating. It's the miracle of life."

"If you say it's the miracle of life one more time," Cam warned, "I won't be held responsible for my actions." She turned her attention back to Brennan. "She's doing fine – strong heartbeat for both baby and mom. Hodgins is in there with him."

"She told him she'd like a divorce," Zack informed her. "And that he is never allowed to touch her again. Sexually," he added to clarify.

Brennan actually smiled. Angela was all right. "What about the boys? And Greta?"

Zack looked away at the question. Sweets cleared his throat. "It turns out that her name is not actually Greta Garbo – "

"Shocking, right?" Cam said dryly.

"Her name is Mary Wilson," Zack interrupted. His gaze remained fixed on the floor. "She has been in and out of mental institutions since her teen years, but two years ago she was admitted to the hospital where I'm staying." He looked uncomfortable. "She'd apparently killed her grandfather, who she claimed was involved in a secret organization of some kind."

"Gormogon?" Brennan asked.

"That's our suspicion," Sweets confirmed. "They're not releasing her records yet, but the police have her in custody now."

Brennan's head was swimming. The last question she asked was the one that had been foremost on her mind, apart from Booth's well being.

"Have they found Erin?"

To her surprise, Cam nodded. "The Constable took off in his little jet plane with the skeleton, got as far as the state line, and crashed into the Atlantic. Nobody's sure what happened, but it doesn't look like got out alive. He left Erin behind – Diggs found her about an hour ago."

"And she's all right?" Brennan asked.

"Apart from hypothermia she should be fine," Cam said.

Despite her feelings toward the woman, Brennan felt a surge of relief. She suspected that Erin had been the one to insert the chest tube to prevent Booth's lungs from filling with fluid… Clearly, the woman had gone to considerable lengths to try and take care of Booth after he'd been shot.

"So, I guess that means we're just waiting for Booth," Sweets said.

Brennan was aware that the psychologist was watching her closely. Her eyes were dry now, her composure at least partially restored, but she still had a difficult time finding her voice. Cam took her hand and squeezed it gently.

"He'll be okay – he's a tough old dog."

The doctor came in before Brennan could respond, shooing her friends with a disapproving glare. Brennan answered the stranger's questions politely, her hands clasped in her lap, watching the clock tick out the seconds until she received news about her partner.

* * *

><p>Despite protests from nursing staff and physicians alike, Brennan slept in the ICU room with Booth that night. According to the doctors, the surgery had been successful – they'd repaired as much damage as possible, stopped the bleeding, and removed the bullet. There was still the loss of blood, hypothermia, and the possibility of infection that Booth would have to combat now. It could be days before he awoke, she was told, and months of recovery time after that.<p>

If he recovered at all.

On the floor above them, twelve hours after she was admitted to the hospital, Angela delivered a five pound, two ounce baby boy. She and Hodgins proceeded to grace the child with the longest name Brennan had ever heard; the only part she remembered was Michael Blue Montenegro Hodgins, though there were at least half a dozen other names in there as well.

The next morning, Brennan forced herself to wash up and change her clothes. Though she didn't want to leave Booth alone, she decided that it was only right that she do so – for Angela. She kissed Booth's forehead, noting his stubble and the disconcertingly gray pallor of his skin.

"I won't be long," she assured him.

He didn't answer.

Brennan bought a teddy bear from the hospital gift shop, and took the stairs rather than the elevator to reach Angela's room. When she got there, it looked as though they were having a party. Angela herself was sitting up in her hospital bed, a tiny bundle cradled in her arms. Brennan felt her heart constrict.

Booth should be here for this – at her side, his arm around her shoulders, grinning proudly. For the better part of Angela's pregnancy he'd been watching over her, ensuring that she ate enough and that Hodgins treated her well… He would want to be here.

She forced those thoughts aside, plastered a very false-feeling smile on her face, and forced her way through the throng of guests: Cam, Tripp, Zack, Sweets, Diggs, and even a few of the guests from the hotel. Hodgins stood at Angela's side, gazing happily at their child. Erin was notably absent.

Angela's eyes filled with tears the moment she saw Brennan. She pushed the infant toward her friend, moving the blanket aside to reveal a tiny, perfect little face and wide blue eyes.

"He's beautiful, Ange," Brennan said honestly.

Angela took her hand and squeezed it tightly. "Within a year, Bren, your little girl and my guy here are gonna be having nap times together. I promise you. Booth and Hodgins will be comparing notes and sharing horror stories about how little sleep they're getting."

Hodgins squeezed the back of Angela's neck gently. Brennan nodded, forcing herself not to cry.

"I hope you're right," she said.

Brennan remained with the others for only a short time before she said her goodbyes and returned to Booth's room. When she opened the door, she froze at sight of the woman standing at his bedside.

Erin looked up. It was obvious that she had been crying, but now she brushed those tears away quickly and faced Brennan.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Brennan waited for her to elaborate, to offer some kind of explanation for her actions, but it seemed anymore words were beyond her. She stepped away from Booth with her brow furrowed, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

"You shouldn't be here," Brennan said. She couldn't think of what else to say.

"I know," Erin agreed readily. "I just – I'm going back to Boston. I didn't want to leave without at least thanking him." She looked pained by the words, her eyes sliding from Brennan's the moment they were out.

Brennan clenched her jaw so hard that it hurt. The effort it took not to launch herself across the room and strangle the woman was staggering. She stood aside so Erin could walk past, but the reporter made no move to leave. It seemed that she was working up the courage to say something. Brennan wasn't sure she cared to know what.

"When he thought he was going to die, it was you that pulled him through," Erin said finally. She dug her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket. Standing there, she looked very small. And utterly alone. Despite everything, Brennan felt a twinge of pity.

"I didn't mean for him to…" Erin began. She trailed off, her gaze returning to Booth's inert form. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I know you might not believe me, but I couldn't leave without at least telling you. When he wakes up, if you could just let him know I said 'thanks'…"

Brennan didn't say anything, remaining absolutely still as Erin walked past her to the door. She was halfway in and halfway out before Brennan could bring herself to speak.

"Are you all right?" she asked. She touched her own stomach, nodding toward Erin. "The baby, I mean…"

A flicker of something – worry, perhaps, or maybe regret – crossed Erin's face. "I think so. I'll check in with my doctor once I get back to Cambridge. Start taking care of myself a little better…"

"That's good," Brennan said approvingly. She hesitated a moment before taking a step closer to the other woman. "Diggs was very worried, you know." It wasn't her place to say anything. And really, what did she know about any of it? She persevered regardless. "He obviously cares a great deal for you."

Erin smiled faintly, her eyes sliding from Brennan's. She looked embarrassed. "He's a good friend. I'm lucky to have him."

Brennan didn't bother to push the matter any further; she had the sense that Erin already knew to what she was referring. Clearly, the woman's life was stressful enough without having a thoroughly unqualified stranger give her advice. And so, Brennan remained silent as Erin Solomon left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

The only sounds in the hospital room after she'd gone came from the machines around Booth's bed. Brennan took her seat beside him once again and clasped his hand tightly. She lay her head very carefully at his side, breathing in his familiar scent.

It seemed as though she had just closed her eyes when she felt a hand squeeze her own. Another few moments passed before she reoriented herself enough to realize where she was – or to recognize the voice whispering her name.

"Booth?"

She looked at him with frank astonishment. Booth smiled back at her, though there was pain in his eyes and his face looked more drawn than she had ever seen it. He wet his lips.

"What's a guy gotta do to get some water around here?" he rasped.

Brennan was certain she'd never heard a more beautiful sound in her life.

_**TBC**_

_**Psst... Feedback is nicer than chocolate. Hit that magic button below and let me know if you're still with me!  
><strong>_


	33. Chapter ThirtyTwo

_**And... At last, kiddos, we have The End. Thanks yet again to everyone for all the comments and friendship and support; you guys are awesome!  
><strong>_

_**Oh - And my novel, ALL THE BLUE-EYED ANGELS, takes place about three months after this fic ends. You'll find out more about Diggs and Solomon and the pregnancy and, of course, the mystery out on Payson Isle. All this week (March 12 - 16) you can get it on Amazon for just $.99! If you'd spread the word, I'd be ever so grateful!**  
><em>

_Chapter Thirty-Two_

Booth had never been great at being sick – it drove him crazy being stuck in a bed, watching the rest of the world go on without him. For the first week after he woke up, though, he didn't even have the strength to be annoyed. The docs were pushing pain meds like they were going out of style, but the fear of what could happen if he started to rely on them too much kept him from going too crazy with the stuff.

The price he paid was high, though – constant pain and sleeplessness while he waited for his body to heal. It wasn't like when he was younger, either; it felt like the whole process was taking forever, and he worried that he'd never be the man he'd been before the shooting.

Cam and Angela and the rest of the crew came in to say goodbye before they headed back to DC, but the doctors were dragging their heels on his release; he and Bones would stay behind for at least another week. The day everyone else was scheduled to leave, they packed into Booth's little hospital room for one final debrief before the team separated.

Bones sat on the edge of his bed, her hand on his shoulder. Since he'd been shot, it was like she needed that physical contact, just to reassure herself that he was still there. Booth was grateful – there wasn't much else he could do for her, but if just being around made her feel better, he would damned well do exactly that.

Zack was still with them, he noticed – Bones told him Sweets had pulled some strings, put his own reputation on the line vouching for the squint.

"Are you sure you don't want us to stay a little longer?" Angela asked for about the twelfth time that day. "I could just take part of my maternity time here. I don't mind."

She had Michael – there was no way in hell Booth was ever calling that kid Blue – in her arms, looking like she'd been born to be a mom. Bones shook her head before Booth could give the same answer.

"You should go home. Get settled. We'll only be here for another week, according to the doctors. Then we'll be coming home, as well."

_Coming home. _Booth liked the sound of that. He nodded. He still couldn't sit up all the way because of the way the wound in his fucking chest was draining, which annoyed the hell out of him when he was trying to talk to people.

"Bones is right – you don't want the little guy's first days spent hanging around a bunch of sick people. Go home."

They talked a while longer but Booth was getting more tired by the second. Finally, Cam cleared her throat and got around to what he figured she'd been aching to talk about all along.

"They recovered the Constable's body, but Greta – uh, Mary Wilson," she corrected herself before Zack could do it for her, "still isn't talking. No one's been able to figure out her connection to him, or what the plan might have been."

"Erin said there wasn't enough room in the plane for anyone else," Tripp said. He stood leaning against the door, arms crossed over his chest. "Our best guess is that Mills was planning on either killing her or ditching her after he'd gotten what he needed from her."

Booth nodded, taking this in. He'd been in the hospital a week, and in all that time he still hadn't figure out how to ask about Erin. He didn't want to make Bones feel bad, for one thing, and for another he still wasn't sure what he was supposed to say about any of it. Even now, he kind of looked off to the side when Tripp mentioned her name.

Suddenly, another question struck him. "What about Mills' missing brother – Mosby?"

"They found him tied in the back room at the jail," Cam answered. "Apparently, he'd tried to stop the whole thing – he was the one they'd had tied in the room back at the beginning of this whole thing."

Jesus. Booth had completely forgotten about that; it felt like he'd been working this case through a haze, trying to navigate way too many things while his head, ultimately, just wasn't in the game lately. It wasn't an easy thing to admit, but he figured one of these days he and Bones were gonna have to have a talk about that. Though it looked like that wouldn't be a problem for at least a little while, since he was bound to be sidelined for a couple of months of recovery time. Any other time in his life, that thought would have driven him crazy; now, he find himself looking forward to the break.

"They still haven't found the skeleton," Zack said out of the blue. It was clear by the look in his eyes that the thought was freaking him out.

"Just another treasure to add to Davy Jones' locker," Hodgins said. He clapped Zack on the back. "Don't worry about it, man, somebody'll find it one of these days. For now, the way I figure it, it's better if everybody just leaves the thing down there."

"So, do we have any idea what the story was on this whole thing?" Booth asked. He could feel himself slipping fast – another couple of minutes and Bones would be throwing everybody out anyway, but he wanted answers before that happened. "All the people who died out there, the creepy secret society…"

"It looks as though the Mills family was part of the society for the past hundred years," Cam said. "Mills had been conducting his little ceremonies in that secret room under the Monhegan Inn for years."

"Until his brother found it and the skeleton," Bones said, putting the pieces together at the same time he did.

"Exactly," Cam agreed. She paused for a second; Booth could tell she was trying to figure out whether or not he was up for anymore news. He forced himself to stuff the pain and the growing fatigue aside for just a little longer.

"What about Will and Sam?" he asked. "Any word?"

Cam actually smiled at that, glancing at Tripp before she answered. "They're settled in Portland now. Already back in school and apparently doing well. I spoke with the aunt the other day – she seems to have a great perspective, and she and her husband are already getting the boys counseling."

The news boosted Booth's spirits. Whatever else came out of this, at least he knew the boys were safe. Now, they even stood a chance at normalcy – happiness, even – for the rest of their childhood. Lindley had done a number on them, no doubt, but kids had been through worse and come through okay. They were strong, smart boys with a lot going for them. He hoped that would be enough to set them on the right path.

Booth closed his eyes, already starting to doze off. Bones was up and shooing people out a second later. He mumbled a sleepy goodbye, and let himself drift back to sleep.

It was dark when Booth woke up again. Bones was working on her laptop in the chair next to his bed, but she got up when she realized he was awake. She poured him some water without waiting for him to ask, and helped him sip at it before she said anything.

"What time is it?" he asked. The medication and all the napping were hell on his internal clock.

"Just after one a.m.," Bones said. "It looked as though you slept well – you've been unconscious since the others left."

He nodded. The pain in his chest was bad, but he tried to ignore it for the moment. He didn't want drugs right now.

"Bones, have a seat." She started to go back to her chair, but he pet the side of the bed instead. "That's too far away. Come on over here."

She smiled – a sweet, surprised smile that made him think he needed to do a little better letting her know how much it meant that she was here. She sat. He took her hand and just held it for a few seconds. His Bones. Soft and strong; fierce and sensitive.

"You know I love you, right Bones?"

She tensed – he felt her body go rigid. When he met her eye again, she looked guarded. He couldn't imagine what it was she thought he was about to say.

"This is about Erin," she said. Flat. Cold. He looked at her in surprise.

"Nothing happened, Bones," he said quietly. She looked like she believed that well enough, but it didn't make her look any less troubled.

"I know you would never engage in any type of sexual relationship with another woman while we were together. But where Erin was concerned, there just seemed to be…" she stopped. Her eyes filled with tears, her jaw hard. Booth pulled her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. Despite everything, he found himself doing his damnedest to hide a smile.

Bones caught it, though. She pulled her hand back. "It's not funny! There's nothing amusing about any of this."

"Are you kidding?" For the first time since he'd gotten the slug buried in his chest, Booth was grinning ear to ear. "After all the shit I got over TJ-God's-Gift-to-Women-Fucking-Wright? Come on, Bones. It's a little funny."

"I didn't nearly die trying to save TJ's life," she spit out at him. She got off the bed, eyes flashing.

Booth tried to reach for her but shifted wrong and just about passed out at the searing pain in his chest. He saw the horror on Bones' face when she realized what had happened. She went to him in a second, any trace of anger erased.

"Do you need me to call the doctor?"

He managed to shake his head, still woozy from the pain. "I'm okay, Bones."

It took a second before he got himself pulled together enough to look her in the eye. He held her hands as tight as he could. What he found there was enough to undo him. Her dark hair was down, framing her face. She was just wearing jeans and a sweater, but Bones was so gorgeous that even that simple outfit looked classy on her. He prayed to God to give him the strength to be all that a woman like Temperance Brennan deserved.

"You're the love of my life, Bones." He tried to fill his voice with everything he felt for her – all the things words would never be enough to say. "Nothing will ever change that. Erin needed help, and I'm glad I was there to give it to her – just like I'm glad we were able to help Will and Sam. But there's no woman on the planet – in the whole damn galaxy – that will ever mean to me what you do."

He pulled her closer. She carefully lay her head on his chest, one hand resting lightly on his stomach. Booth breathed in the sweetness of her skin, kissing the top of her head.

"I love you," she said quietly.

Booth felt his heart swell. He closed his eyes, and thanked God and all the saints that he'd been given a second chance to do things right.

* * *

><p>Diggs came to visit the hospital two days later. Booth had insisted that Bones get a hotel room and spend at least the day away from him; he half-wished she hadn't packed Dosha off with everyone else, just so she'd have a reason to get outside without him a couple times a day. But at least if she had a hotel room, she could take a long bath and maybe get a real night's sleep for a change. Relax, in other words, without having to worry about whether his friggin' chest was healing right or what his temperature was or when he'd gone to the fucking bathroom last. Honest to God, being a patient sucked.<p>

He'd just woken up for his latest round of tests and poking and prodding by another of the surly nurses when Diggs came in. Booth figured everyone would have had time to recover since the whole Monhegan nightmare, but if anything Diggs looked worse: deep shadows under his eyes, way more scruff than anybody short of a bum should be sporting, his wavy hair clearly in need of a cut.

Booth pushed the button on the bed and it elevated so he could at least look the guy in the eye. He didn't need a magic eight ball to know what the visit was about.

"How's it going, Diggs?" Booth made an effort to inject some lightness to the words, without much success.

Diggs sank into the chair by the bed. "Oh, you know – same old, same old. Deadlines and creditors, hooligan fishermen and mixed metaphors…" He took a deep breath and let it out slow. "The life of a newspaper man. How're you feeling?"

"Could be better – but I'm still breathing, so you won't hear me complain. Much." He paused. Now that the pleasantries were out of the way, he waited for Diggs to tell him why he was really there.

The other man leaned forward in his chair, scrubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. He didn't look up when he spoke.

"She lost the baby," he said.

Booth's heart sank like a stone. He didn't have to ask who 'she' was, of course. Yeah, Erin had bitched about being pregnant, but he'd seen that moment when it changed for her; the way she'd said her father's name. Despite everything, he felt like she would've been a good mom. A kid would have been good for her.

"I'm sorry," he said lamely. "When?"

Diggs sighed. He leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out a little. "A couple nights ago. Michael found her on the bathroom floor of their place in Cambridge."

Booth winced. "Michael's the husband?"

"Yeah." Diggs said it like he'd just gargled with a mouthful of sewer water. "The husband. She comes through everything – almost drowning, the kidnapping, trekking across a fucking island in her stocking feet, the whole thing… And _then, _loses the baby."

Booth had been thinking the same thing. "With all that shit, though – I mean, that's a hell of a lot of stress when you're pregnant. Women have miscarried for a lot fewer reasons than that."

Diggs shook his head. He looked pissed now – pissed, and maybe a little baffled. Or hurt. "It wasn't a miscarriage, though; it was ectopic. That's what kills me in all this. If she'd told somebody three months ago, all of this could've been avoided. One ultrasound and a doctor could have told her the pregnancy wasn't viable."

Booth had no clue how to answer that. The two men sat in silence for a while, lost in separate thoughts. Finally, Booth got an idea of why Diggs was there in the first place.

"She would have told you," he said. Diggs didn't even look up, sitting at the edge of his chair now studying his clasped hands. "She just needed to figure some things out."

"I knew something was wrong, though. I've known her fifteen years now – I _knew _something was off. She's a pain in the ass, yes, and she's done crazy things without thinking them through to get a story, but… She's never acted like she did when we were out there that weekend. Not to that extreme."

"You tried to get her to talk to you, though," Booth reminded him. "Look – you can't help somebody who doesn't want to be helped. She wasn't ready then." The memory of Erin in the boat flashed through his mind, her hands on his bleeding chest, talking him through the pain.

"I'm guessing she'll probably need somebody now, though," Booth said.

Diggs kind of laughed at that. He shook his head. "Erin Solomon never needs anybody. Personal weakness is a cardinal sin for the woman."

"She won't be able to keep that up forever," Booth said seriously. He waited until Diggs looked him in the eye before he continued. "She's got a lot going on. I get the feeling she doesn't let too many people in that thick skin of hers, but somehow you've gotten through. I wouldn't give up on her if I were you."

The reporter thought that over for a few seconds before he finally nodded. "Yeah… You're right. She's always been there for me – the least I can do is return the favor now, as much as she'll let me."

He stood. "Is there anything I can get for you while you're still in town? I'm guessing a lobster dinner is out of the question right now, but the next time you're up…"

Booth didn't have the heart to tell him it would be a cold day in hell before he ever set foot in Maine again. He just shook his head.

"Nah. Just watch out for Erin, and take care of yourself. I've got a feeling you've still got some bumps in the road coming up."

Diggs studied him for a second, like he sensed there was a story there he wasn't getting. He didn't push it, though – something Booth was grateful for. They said their goodbyes, and Booth watched the other man leave. For a second, he felt a sick kind of despair wash over him when he saw how easily Diggs moved; no aches or pains, no sign of weakness. How many times had he taken that kind of health for granted for himself? What were the chances he'd ever feel that way again?

* * *

><p>Later that day, Bones came back to the hospital looking fresher than she had in a while. She was wearing a new, pretty blue dress, and had her hair up and some color in her cheeks. Booth felt just a shadow of desire wash over him, and just about wept with relief. Yeah, he was sidelined right now – but he was hardly out of the game. Bones caught the look on his face and smiled prettily at him.<p>

"You look better," she noted.

"You look gorgeous," he noted right back. "Keep wearing things like that, Bones, and I'll be jumping out of this hospital bed before you know it."

She rolled her eyes, but she couldn't hide the pleased blush of color in her cheeks. "I wanted to talk to you about that," she said.

She was trying to be serious, but Booth had hold of her hand and couldn't stop ogling her plunging neckline. She tilted his chin up with her index finger, until he was forced to look away from her luscious cleavage and up to her pretty face.

"Sorry, Bones – what was that?"

That earned another roll of crystal blue eyes, and a less-amused smile this time. "Your recovery," she said. "I think we should discuss our plans."

The room was warm, but outside he could see that there was still snow on the ground. It felt like the world was going by without him. He had no intention of letting that happen, though – not with a woman like Bones by his side. He nodded gamely.

"All right, Bones. Let's discuss our plans. Do you wanna start with the day the docs give me the all-clear to get back in the saddle with you? Because that's definitely a day that's been on my mind."

Her forehead got the little wrinkle it always got when he wasn't taking her seriously. "I was thinking more of our plans when we return to D.C. You'll need physical therapy. And my apartment isn't equipped with some of the things that may be necessary when you first get out of the hospital – "

He held up his hand to stop her. The lightness he'd felt before had vanished, just like that. "Whoa there, Bones – hang on. I'm not crippled here. Yeah, I'll need to take it slow for a couple months, but don't set me out to pasture just yet."

"I don't want to set you out to pasture," she said. She frowned, and the furrow in her forehead deepened. "I would like us to go away together," she finally said.

Booth had been too set on one track to follow her right away. When he did, he felt his tension start to ease a little. "Yeah?" He tried to hide his grin. "Did you have someplace in mind?"

"Somewhere warm," she said immediately. "I thought once you're out of the hospital, and you've finished the bulk of your physical therapy, perhaps we could take that vacation you've been talking about. A nice cabana on the beach. I could work on my next book. You could… fish. Or snorkel." That thought was apparently a good one, because her eyes got kind of distant, a little smile on her lips. "Somewhere suitable for a honeymoon." She looked at him full-on now, gauging his reaction.

This time, he made no attempt to hide that grin of his. "You're sure?"

She sat down next to him. Nodded, those depthless blue eyes of hers serious and sad and gorgeous. "If you still want to, I would like us to have a ceremony when we return to Washington. Something small," she said quickly. "Just our friends. And your family, of course. And Russ, and my father."

He took her hand and held on tight. "I think we can do that, Bones."

She kissed him sweetly on the mouth. Booth shut out everything but the taste of her lips, his knuckles ghosting over the swell of her breast in that pretty blue dress of hers. He felt her shiver against him, and closed his eyes.

Yep. He was sidelined for now, but Seeley Booth was definitely looking forward to getting back in the game, with a new bride keeping pace with him every step of the way.

_FIN_

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